Pivot-Only Azimuthal Control and Attitude Estimation of Balloon-borne Payloads

TL;DR

This paper introduces a pivot-only control and attitude estimation framework for balloon-borne payloads, validated through simulations and experiments, enabling stable azimuthal scanning without reaction wheels.

Contribution

It develops a combined attitude estimation and yaw-rate control method using pivot actuation, validated on a balloon platform with realistic disturbances and sensing limitations.

Findings

Successful high-rate azimuthal tracking demonstrated

Close match between simulation and experimental results

Effective attitude estimation with a Multiplicative EKF

Abstract

This paper presents an attitude estimation and yaw-rate control framework for balloon-borne payloads using pivot-only actuation, motivated by the Taurus experiment. Taurus is a long-duration balloon instrument designed for rapid azimuthal scanning at approximately 30 deg/s using a motorized pivot at the flight-train connection, without a reaction wheel. We model the gondola as a rigid body subject to realistic disturbances and sensing limitations, and implement a Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter (MEKF) that estimates attitude and gyroscope bias by fusing inertial and vector-camera measurements. A simple PI controller uses the estimated states to regulate yaw rate. Numerical simulations incorporating representative disturbance and measurement noise levels are used to evaluate closed-loop control performance and MEKF behavior under flight-like conditions. Experimental tests on the Taurus gondola validate the pivot-only approach, demonstrating stable high-rate tracking under realistic hardware constraints. The close agreement between simulation and experiment indicates that the simplified rigid-body model captures the dominant dynamics relevant for controller design and integrated estimation-and-control development.