Magnetometer Calibration Based on the CHAOS-7 Model

Abstract

We describe a method for the in-orbit calibration of body-mounted magnetometers based on the CHAOS-7 geomagnetic field model. The code is designed to find the true calibration parameters autonomously by using only the onboard magnetometer data and the corresponding CHAOS outputs. As the model output and satellite data have different coordinate systems, they are first transformed to a Star Tracker Coordinate (STC). Then, non-linear optimization processes are run to minimize the differences between the CHAOS-7 model and satellite data in the STC. The process finally searches out a suite of calibration parameters that can maximize the model-data agreement. These parameters include the instrument gain, offset, axis orthogonality, and Euler rotation matrices between the magnetometer frame and the STC. To validate the performance of the Python code, we first produce pseudo satellite data by convoluting CHAOS-7 model outputs with a prescribed set of the ‘true’ calibration parameters. Then, we let the code autonomously undistort the pseudo satellite data through optimization processes, which ultimately track down the initially prescribed calibration parameters. The reconstructed parameters are in good agreement with the prescribed (true) ones, which demonstrates that the code can be used for actual instrument data calibration. This study is performed using Python 3.8.5, NumPy 1.19.2, SciPy 1.6, AstroPy 4.2, SpacePy 0.2.1, and ChaosmagPy 0.5 including the CHAOS-7.6 geomagnetic field model. This code will be utilized for processing NextSat-1 and Small scale magNetospheric and Ionospheric Plasma Experiment (SNIPE) data in the future.