Abstract
In this paper, the pose estimation method for the satellite GTB (Ground Test Bed) using vision/MEMS IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) integrated system is presented. The GTB for verifying a satellite system on the ground is similar to the mobile robot having thrusters and a reaction wheel as actuators and floating on the floor by compressed air. The EKF (Extended Kalman Filter) is also used for fusion of MEMS IMU and vision system that consists of a single camera and infrared LEDs that is ceiling landmarks. The fusion filter generally utilizes the position of feature points from the image as measurement. However, this method can cause position error due to the bias of MEMS IMU when the camera image is not obtained if the bias is not properly estimated through the filter. Therefore, it is proposed that the fusion method which uses the position of feature points and the velocity of the camera determined from optical flow of feature points. It is verified by experiments that the performance of the proposed method is robust to the bias of IMU compared to the method that uses only the position of feature points.