Inertial measurements Based dynamic attitude estimation and velocity-free attitude stabilization

Abstract

This paper deals with the attitude estimation and control problems for rigid bodies, using inertial vector measurements. First, we revisit the attitude estimation algorithm on SO(3) that has been recently proposed in the literature, and propose some practical extensions and new insightful unit quaternion based proofs. Then, we propose an attitude stabilization control scheme using only inertial vector measurements. The originality of this control strategy stems from the fact that the explicit reconstruction of the attitude as well as the angular velocity measurements are not required anymore.