  This paper proposes local exponential observers for systems on linear Lie
groups. We study two different classes of systems. In the first class, the full
state of the system evolves on a linear Lie group and is available for
measurement. In the second class, only part of the system's state evolves on a
linear Lie group and this portion of the state is available for measurement. In
each case, we propose two different observer designs. We show that, depending
on the observer chosen, local exponential stability of one of the two
observation error dynamics, left- or right-invariant error dynamics, is
obtained. For the first class of systems these results are developed by showing
that the estimation error dynamics are differentially equivalent to a stable
linear differential equation on a vector space. For the second class of system,
the estimation error dynamics are almost linear. We illustrate these observer
designs on an attitude estimation problem.
