Machine Learning Algorithms for Spacecraft Magnetic Field Interference
Cancellation: Enabling Satellite Magnetometry without a Boom
Abstract
This paper presents a novel approach and algorithm to the problem of
magnetic field interference cancellation of time-varying interference
using distributed magnetometers and spacecraft telemetry with particular
emphasis on the constrained computational and power requirements of
CubeSats. The traditional approach to enable space-based low-amplitude
and low-noise magnetometry is to develop a spacecraft magnetic
cleanliness design and place the magnetometer sensor at the end of a
boom far enough away from the bus to minimize remaining stray magnetic
fields. In addition, secondary magnetometers are often placed partway
along the boom to apply magnetic field gradiometry to clean the data
further (e.g., NASA MMS has 8 meter booms with a sensor half-way down
and another at the end). We employ a different approach taking advantage
of low-cost chip-based magnetometers that can be placed throughout the
satellite bus instead of utilizing a boom. The spacecraft magnetic field
interference cancellation problem that we solve involves estimation of
noise when the number of interfering sources far exceeds the number of
sensors required to decouple the noise from the signal. The proposed
approach models this as a contextual bandit learning problem and the
proposed algorithm learns to identify the optimal low-noise combination
of distributed magnetometers based on indirect information gained on
spacecraft currents through telemetry. The algorithmic behaviors are
tested with synthetically modeled spacecraft data and on real world data
generated in a lab-based setting with telemetry and currents collected
from the GRIFEX CubeSat and provides a way for accurate magnetic field
measurements with CubeSats.