Journal of Systems Engineering and Electronics ›› 2020, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (4): 804-814.doi: 10.23919/JSEE.2020.000055

• Control Theory and Application • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Underwater square-root cubature attitude estimator by use of quaternion-vector switching and geomagnetic field tensor

Yu HUANG1,2,*(), Lihua WU2(), Qiang YU3()   

  1. 1 Acoustic Science and Technology Laboratory, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China
    2 Key Lab of In-fiber Integrated Optics, Ministry Education of China, College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China
    3 College of Automation, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China
  • Received:2019-11-07 Online:2020-08-25 Published:2020-08-25
  • Contact: Yu HUANG E-mail:huangyu@hrbeu.edu.cn;wulihua@hrbeu.edu.cn;yuqiang@hrbeu.edu.cn
  • About author:HUANG Yu was born in 1976. He received his Ph.D. degree in engineering in 2011. He is currently an associate professor in the College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering at Harbin Engineering University. He has authored over 60 papers in journals or conferences and has authorized more than 10 Chinese invention patents. His main research interests include magnetic field detection and geomagnetic field navigation. E-mail: huangyu@hrbeu.edu.cn|WU Lihua was born in 1979. She received her Ph.D. degree in engineering in 2010. She is currently a lecturer in the College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering at Harbin Engineering University. She has authored over 20 papers in journals or conferences and has authorized seven Chinese invention patents. Her main research interests are in the field of precise magnetic field measurement. E-mail: wulihua@hrbeu.edu.cn|YU Qiang was born in 1977. He is a lecturer of the College of Automation, Harbin Engineering University. He obtained his Ph.D. degree majoring in navigation guidance and control from Harbin Engineering University in 2011. He has more than 10 academic papers published, and 30 invention patents applied. The main research directions are inertial navigation technology and magnetic detection technology. E-mail: yuqiang@hrbeu.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    the National Natural Science Foundation of China(11405035);the National Natural Science Foundation of China(61004130);the National Natural Science Foundation of China(60834005);the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province of China(F201414);the Postdoctoral Scientific Research Developmental Fund of Heilongjiang Province(LBHQ15034);the Stable Supporting Fund of Acoustic Science and Technology Laboratory(JCKYS2019604SSJS002);the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities;This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11405035; 61004130; 60834005), the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province of China (F201414), the Postdoctoral Scientific Research Developmental Fund of Heilongjiang Province (LBHQ15034), the Stable Supporting Fund of Acoustic Science and Technology Laboratory (JCKYS2019604SSJS002), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

Abstract:

This paper presents a kind of attitude estimation algorithm based on quaternion-vector switching and square-root cubature Kalman filter for autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The filter formulation is based on geomagnetic field tensor measurement dependent on the attitude and a gyro-based model for attitude propagation. In this algorithm, switching between the quaternion and the three-component vector is done by a couple of the mathematical transformations. Quaternion is chosen as the state variable of attitude in the kinematics equation to time update, while the mean value and covariance of the quaternion are computed by the three-component vector to avoid the normalization constraint of quaternion. The square-root forms enjoy a continuous and improved numerical stability because all the resulting covariance matrices are guaranteed to stay positively semi-definite. The entire square-root cubature attitude estimation algorithm with quaternion-vector switching for the nonlinear equality constraint of quaternion is given. The numerical simulation of simultaneous swing motions in the three directions is performed to compare with the three kinds of filters and the results indicate that the proposed filter provides lower attitude estimation errors than the other two kinds of filters and a good convergence rate.

Key words: attitude estimator, geomagnetic field tensor, quaternion-vector switching, square-root cubature Kalman filter, autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV)