Star spot location estimation using Kalman filter for star tracker

Star pattern recognition and attitude determination accuracy is highly dependent on star spot location accuracy for the star tracker. A star spot location estimation approach with the Kalman filter for a star tracker has been proposed, which consists of three steps. In the proposed approach, the approximate locations of the star spots in successive frames are predicted first; then the measurement star spot locations are achieved by defining a series of small windows around each predictive star spot location. Finally, the star spot locations are updated by the designed Kalman filter. To confirm the proposed star spot location estimation approach, the simulations based on the orbit data of the CHAMP satellite and the real guide star catalog are performed. The simulation results indicate that the proposed approach can filter out noises from the measurements remarkably if the sampling frequency is sufficient. c 2011 Optical Society of America