Roll angle measurement for a spinning vehicle based on GPS signals received by a single-patch antenna

Roll angle measurement is an essential technology in the trajectory correction projectiles. In this paper, an algorithm to detect the roll angle and rotational speed of a spinning vehicle is studied by using a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver with a single side-mounted antenna. A Frequency-Locked Loop (FLL) assisted Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) is designed to obtain the attitude information from GPS signals, and the optimal parameters of this system are discussed when different rotational speeds are considered. The error estimation of this method and signal-to-noise ratio analysis of GPS signals are also studied. Finally, experiments on the rotary table were carried out to verify the proposed method. The experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm can detect the roll angle in a precision of within 5 degrees.