Evaluation Tool for Hybrid Launch Vehicle Navigation Systems and Measurements Fusion

Accurate attitude determination is paramount for launch vehicle performance and effectiveness. Solutions traditionally employed on launchers rely on systems characterized by high-precision and high costs. The advancements in the field of low-cost Micro Electronic Mechanical Systems have opened the doors to new, more economical solutions. Limitations in their use are mostly centered around noise present in their measurements restricting their accuracy and reliability. In this work, a simulative model of a two stage launch vehicle is implemented and used to simulate noisy IMU gyroscope and accelerometer measurements along with noisy magnetometer data. An Extended Kalman Filter is also developed, and its performance assessed, using these same noisy measurements, with respect to the reference trajectory implemented. A Montecarlo analysis of the filter's ability in attitude estimation is then performed for varying levels of measurement noise in order to review filter performance and evaluate the contributions of the gyroscope and accelerometer measurements noise to the attitude estimation error.