Session
Pre-Conference Poster Session I
Location
Utah State University, Logan, UT
Abstract
This paper presents a novel small satellite star tracker that uses multiple low-cost cameras to achieve viable attitude determination performance. The theoretical analysis of the star detectability improvement by stacking images from multiple cameras is presented. An image processing algorithm is developed to combine images from multiple cameras with various focal lengths, principal point offsets, distortions, and misalignments. The star tracker also implements other algorithms including the region growing algorithm, the intensity weighted centroid algorithm, the geometric voting algorithm for star identification, and the singular value decomposition algorithm for attitude determination. A star tracker software simulator is used to test the algorithms by generating star images with sensor noises, lens defocusing, and lens distortion. A hardware prototype is assembled, and preliminary night sky testing was conducted to verify the feasibility of the selected hardware. The flight hardware for the star tracker is being developed in the Laboratory for Advanced Space Systems at Illinois (LASSI) at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign for future CubeSat missions.
Development of a Low-Cost Multi-Camera Star Tracker for Small Satellites
Utah State University, Logan, UT
This paper presents a novel small satellite star tracker that uses multiple low-cost cameras to achieve viable attitude determination performance. The theoretical analysis of the star detectability improvement by stacking images from multiple cameras is presented. An image processing algorithm is developed to combine images from multiple cameras with various focal lengths, principal point offsets, distortions, and misalignments. The star tracker also implements other algorithms including the region growing algorithm, the intensity weighted centroid algorithm, the geometric voting algorithm for star identification, and the singular value decomposition algorithm for attitude determination. A star tracker software simulator is used to test the algorithms by generating star images with sensor noises, lens defocusing, and lens distortion. A hardware prototype is assembled, and preliminary night sky testing was conducted to verify the feasibility of the selected hardware. The flight hardware for the star tracker is being developed in the Laboratory for Advanced Space Systems at Illinois (LASSI) at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign for future CubeSat missions.
