Abstract
Many planetary exploration missions which use unmanned mobile robots (Rover) have been planned and carried out. In missions using rovers, attitude determination system is essential for precise guidance to destination and antenna orientation. However, a sensor failure has reported in a recent mission, therefore it is effective to build a redundant system. In this study, we build a new attitude determination system which combines solar panels characteristics and an accelerometer. At first, sun vector can be estimated using current, voltage and temperature of the solar panels because electric power generation of each solar panel is different depending on a position of the sun and geometry of the solar panels. In addition, by using gravity vector obtained by an accelerometer, the attitude of rovers can be estimated through QUEST algorithm. Finally, we confirm the availability of proposal attitude determination system by simulation.
