Nondimensional star identification for uncalibrated star cameras
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abstract
Star identification is the most critical and important process for attitude estimation, given data from any star sensor. The main purpose of the Star Identification (Star-ID) process is to identify the observed/measured stars with the corresponding cataloged stars. The precision of the observed star directions highly depend on the calibrated accuracy of the star camera parameters, mainly the focal length/, and the optical axis offsets (x 0, y0). When these parameters are not accurate or when the camera is not well calibrated, the proposed Nondimensional Star-ID method becomes very suitable, because it does not require accurate knowledge of these parameters. The Nondimensional Star-ID method represents a unique tool to identify the stars of uncalibrated or inaccurate parameters cameras. The basic idea derives the identification process from the observed focal plane angles which are, to first order, independent from both the focal length and the optical axis offsets. The adoption of the k-vector range search technique, makes this method very fast. Moreover, it is easy to implement, accurate, and the probability of failing Star-ID is less than 0.1% for typical star tracker design parameters.
