US Patent 11409003 Global navigation satellite system beam based attitude determination

Disclosed is a technique to estimate at least a portion of an attitude, such as an azimuth angle from true North, based on beam angles from a controlled reception pattern antenna (CRPA) to space vehicle locations. Other attitude information such as roll and/or pitch can also be estimated. The at least portion of the attitude can be provided with or without an additional sensor, such as a compass or magnetometer, an inertial measurement unit (IMU), or the like. An attitude estimate can be useful because oftentimes the attitude of an object can vary from its track or velocity direction.