Attitude determination method and experimental research based on MEMS IMU and magnetoresistive sensor

To evaluate and improve the performance of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems(MEMS) sensors and magnetoresistive sensor, an effective calibration method is implemented to evaluate the significant error sources such as bias, scale factor, and misalignment. These errors are estimated in virtue of static tests, rate tests. Furthermore, an intelligent attitude determination method of pointing a spinning spacecraft using only magnetic devices is proposed. The pitch angle of spinning spacecraft is estimated by artificial neural network on line. Real data test is performed to validate and evaluate the proposed approach. The experimental results show that this method is effective in calibrating the MEMS IMU and magnetoresistive sensor. The proposed intelligent attitude determination method by magnetometer data only can provide the high dynamic accuracy of less than 1.5 degree.