Some aerospace applications of estimation theory

In this report, the application of estimation theory to three problems from aerospace research is described. The applications considered deal with spacecraft attitude estimation, software reliability modelling and estimation, and with a satellite-based navigation algorithm. Maximum likelihood estimation is used in the software reliability case...

Processing of Meteosat attitude measurement flight data and evaluation of the performance of an adaptive filtering technique

The attitude measurement data of the ESA geosynchronous spacecraft METEOSAT have been analyzed using an adaptive recursive filtering technique developed at NLR. The mathematical models of spacecraft dynamics and sensors have been kept very simple. Modelling errors are such that, without adaptive feed-back, strong divergence of the filtering...