GNSS Signal Processing Based Attitude Determination of Spinning Projectiles

This article presents a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) based attitude (pitch, roll, and heading) determination method for spinning objects by estimating the unit vector along the projectile nose and the antenna pointing vector that lies radially in the plane of rotation. A theoretical framework of a spinning platform is developed by exploiting the periodic variations of the received signal. The presented method provides a drift-free attitude determination of spinning projectiles directly in earth-centered earth-fixed reference. The scheme may find a good combination with low-cost small projectiles where the provision of advanced inertial sensors is constrained by cost and installation space. The proposed solution can be adopted for different degrees of accuracy and computational complexity. The performance guarantee for the proposed algorithm is established using simulated data and real GNSS data. For real satellite signals, the performance results are validated using an experimental setup having a roll rate of around 750 r/min.