Attitude sensor fault diagnosis based on Kalman filter of discrete-time descriptor system

To diagnose the fault of attitude sensors in satellites, this paper proposes a novel approach based on the Kalman filter of the discrete-time descriptor system. By regarding the sensor fault term as the auxiliary state vector, the attitude measurement system subjected to the attitude sensor fault is modeled by the discrete-time descriptor system. The condition of estimability of such systems is given. And then a Kalman filter of the discrete-time descriptor system is established based on the methodology of the maximum likelihood estimation. With the descriptor Kalman filter, the state vector of the original system and sensor fault can be estimated simultaneously. The proposed method is able to estimate an abrupt sensor fault as well as the incipient one. Moreover, it is also effective in the multiple faults scenario. Simulations are conducted to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.