Recently, space tethered satellite system has attracted widespread attention due to its attractive potential in space applications. Significant research on the tethered satellite formations has been undertaken to study the dynamics and control, vibration modes, tether models, and tether applications and it is generally assumed that the state information of the tethered satellite system is completely known or can be easily measured. However, few studies have been presented on the state estimates of the tethered formations. In this study, a state estimation scheme, with a minimal sensor fusion design, is presented for double-pyramid tethered satellite formations. The objective is achieved by fusing only the measurements of the two GPS sensors and the tether constraints. Furthermore, the observability of the proposed fusion design is proved through the analyses of Lie derivatives. Simulation results are presented that validate the proposed scheme. The proposed scheme provides a general hint of state estimation for a class of satellite formations with the tethered constraints.

近来，空间拴系卫星系统由于其在空间应用中的诱人潜力而引起了广泛关注。为了研究动力学和控制，振动模式，系绳模型和系绳应用，已经对系留卫星编队进行了重要研究，并且通常假定系留卫星系统的状态信息是完全已知的或可以轻松测量的。但是，关于拴系地层状态估算的研究很少。在这项研究中，提出了一种具有最小传感器融合设计的状态估计方案，用于双金字塔系留卫星编队。通过仅融合两个GPS传感器的测量值和系绳约束来实现此目的。此外，通过对李导数的分析证明了所提出的融合设计的可观察性。仿真结果验证了该方案的有效性。所提出的方案为具有束缚约束的一类卫星编队提供了状态估计的一般提示。