Abstract
A star tracker calibration method using star images is presented in this paper. Unlike previous works, the proposed method estimates all parameters and the attitudes at once in a single least-squares formulation for the optimal calibration, which can be easily converted to a recursive estimation form. In addition, this paper presents a method to estimate the overall star tracker performance for attitude determination from the calibration results. Since the proposed method uses star images only, it can be applied to both on-orbit and ground star tracker calibration. The simulations show improvements in calibration performance about four times compared to the previous calibration method. The calibration experiments with actual star images are conducted to test its application.
Highlights
A star tracker is one of the most accurate sensors for spacecraft attitude determination [7,8]
Since the star tracker is an optical sensor that estimates geometric star vectors from the images captured by a star camera, the geometric defection called camera parame
The AIC method is another approach to tackle the “Chicken or the egg” problem. It has been widely used in the literature as well as in practice, especially for on-orbit star tracker calibrations [2,10,12,23]. As this is free from the spacecraft attitude, the attitude determination error does not affect the convergence of the calibration parameters, and the algorithm becomes simple and convenient
Summary
A star tracker is one of the most accurate sensors for spacecraft attitude determination [7,8]. Instead of the artificial experimental setup, the natural starlight can be used for ground star tracker calibration [5], which has advantages in costs as this does not require expensive equipment These approaches are used in on-orbit calibrations with star images; obtaining an accurate attitude becomes an issue in this case. It has been widely used in the literature as well as in practice, especially for on-orbit star tracker calibrations [2,10,12,23] As this is free from the spacecraft attitude, the attitude determination error does not affect the convergence of the calibration parameters, and the algorithm becomes simple and convenient. The attitude determination performance of the calibrated star tracker is discussed with the results from simulations and outdoor experiments
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