A Dead Reckoning Method Based on Martian Atmosphere Polarized Skylight and Celestial Navigation for Mars Exploration UAV

Autonomous navigation technology plays a significant role in Mars exploration unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Focus on the problem of position error drift caused by the lack of absolute heading information, a dead reckoning method based on Martian atmosphere polarized skylight and celestial navigation is proposed. The navigation reference model of Martian atmosphere polarized skylight is analyzed first. Subsequently, the navigation system model is established to fuse the information of polarization navigation, celestial navigation, optical flow, and inertial navigation system. The Monte Carlo simulation tests show that the proposed method can provided the stable and accurate heading, and the landing accuracy of the Mars UAV is improved.