Autonomous Star Camera Calibration and Spacecraft Attitude Determination

Pal, Madhumita and Bhat, Seetharama M (2015) Autonomous Star Camera Calibration and Spacecraft Attitude Determination. In: JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT & ROBOTIC SYSTEMS, 79 (2). pp. 323-343.

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Abstract

This paper presents two methods of star camera calibration to determine camera calibrating parameters (like principal point, focal length etc) along with lens distortions (radial and decentering). First method works autonomously utilizing star coordinates in three consecutive image frames thus independent of star identification or biased attitude information. The parameters obtained in autonomous self-calibration technique helps to identify the imaged stars with the cataloged stars. Least Square based second method utilizes inertial star coordinates to determine satellite attitude and star camera parameters with lens radial distortion, both independent of each other. Camera parameters determined by the second method are more accurate than the first method of camera self calibration. Moreover, unlike most of the attitude determination algorithms where attitude of the satellite depend on the camera calibrating parameters, the second method has the advantage of computing spacecraft attitude independent of camera calibrating parameters except lens distortions (radial). Finally Kalman filter based sequential estimation scheme is employed to filter out the noise of the LS based estimation.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT & ROBOTIC SYSTEMS
Publisher:	SPRINGER
Additional Information:	Copy right for this article belongs to the SPRINGER, VAN GODEWIJCKSTRAAT 30, 3311 GZ DORDRECHT, NETHERLANDS
Keywords:	Star camera calibration; Lens distortion; Satellite attitude estimation; Kalman filter
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Aerospace Engineering(Formerly Aeronautical Engineering)
Date Deposited:	31 Jul 2015 10:26
Last Modified:	31 Jul 2015 10:26
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/51940

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