Generalized Maximum Correntropy Kalman Filter for Target Tracking in TianGong-2 Space Laboratory

Target tracking plays an important role in the construction, operation, and maintenance of the space station by the robot, which puts forward high requirements on the accuracy of target tracking. However, the special space environment may cause complex non-Gaussian noise in target tracking data. And the performance of traditional Kalman Filter will deteriorate seriously when the error signals are non-Gaussian, which may lead to mission failure. In the paper, a novel Kalman Filter algorithm with Generalized Maximum Correntropy Criterion (GMCKF) is proposed to improve the tracking accuracy with non-Gaussian noise. The GMCKF algorithm, which replaces the default Gaussian kernel with the generalized Gaussian density function as kernel, can adapt to multi-type non-Gaussian noises and evaluate the noise accurately. A parameter automatic selection algorithm is proposed to determine the shape parameter of GMCKF algorithm, which helps the GMCKF algorithm achieve better performance for complex non-Gaussian noise. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been evaluated by simulations and the ground experiments. Then, the algorithm has been applied in the maintenance experiments in TianGong-2 space laboratory of China. The results validated the feasibility of the proposed method with the target tracking precision improved significantly in complex non-Gaussian environment.