Pose and motion estimation for network spacecraft system using dual quaternion

Along with the rapid development of modern space science, it is becoming a hot topic to use network spacecrafts for deep space detection or earth observation. And that autonomous relative navigation is one of key technologies for network spacecraft system. In this paper, we now propose a new autonomous relative navigation algorithm for network spacecraft system with quaternion. In this abstract, we just add some pertinent remarks to listing the main work of this paper: (1) a 3-D line and its transformation can be described by using dual quaternion finely. Moreover, the algorithm with dual quaternion is used to calculate both relative position and attitude organically. So in the first topic section, how to depict a 3-D line and its transformation with dual quaternion will be introduced; (2) in second topic section, the thought of how to select the state valuable will be expatiated here firstly, and then we built the state equation state equation according to Clohessy-Wiltshire (C-W) equation and quaternion differential equation; (3) in this paper, the state valuable and the observation valuable are inconsistent for the observation unit is feature line. So how to build the relationship between the state valuable and the observation valuable is very important. Here through the observation transition matrix, we build the observation equation according to con-line equation of vision navigation; (4) finally, we give an example about network spacecraft system. The simulation results show that proposed algorithm is valid for network spacecraft system.