Sensitivity of an extended Kalman filter 2. variation in the observation error levels, observation rates, and types of observations

摘要

This paper presents a continuation of the study on the sensitivity of an extended Kalman filter used to determine the position and velocity of a space vehicle. In this study, the solution accuracy is evaluated using a single space-based observer and up to four types of observations having various error levels and various observation rates. Results again show that a significant improvement in accuracy is achieved by the use of three observation types at each time step and that the addition of a fourth observation type again provided only a small improvement in solution accuracy. The conclusion can be made that an increased amount of observation error degrades the accuracy of the estimates; however, no similar generalization can be made concerning observation rate. The optimal observation rate appears to be problem dependent and must be determined for each particular observation scenario.