Publications Details

Maximizing Celestial Awareness: 6-Synchronized-Star-Trackers for Attitude Determination

Abstract

ttitude determination is a crucial task for space mis-sions and relies on multiple onboard sensors such assun sensors, magnetometers, and Earth horizon sensors.Moreover, star trackers, which identify stars in a sceneand match them against an existing star catalog to de-termine the attitude, provide superior performance com-pared to traditional sensors and they were previously re-served for high-end missions. With the increasing pop-ularity of small satellites, a trade-offbetween cost, effi-ciency, and precision is often encountered. Nowadays, starsensors have undergone significant advancements, becom-ing more efficient and accessible due to notable enhance-ments in hardware and software, particularly throughthe integration of neural networks. This leveraging ofartificial intelligence (AI) has enabled the developmentof a compact and reliable star sensor, potentially elimi-nating the need for other sensor types. In this work, 6-synchronized star-trackers (6SST), a sensor with multipleimaging channels, is proposed to get wider celestial cov-erage and hence reliability. To justify this configuration,a more efficient and optimised software pipeline, alongwith an enhanced hardware implementation, is required.

Publication year
2024
Research Areas
Position, Navigation, and Timing
Publisher
Space Research Conference
Research Type
Conference Contribution
Related Papers