Development of Daytime Observation Model for Star Sensor and Centroiding Performance Analysis

Abstract

A star sensor daytime observation model is developed in order to test the performance of the star sensor useful for daylight application. The centroid errors of the star sensor in the day time application are computed by using the model. The standard atmospheric model (LOWTRAN7) is utilized to calculate the physical quantities of the daylight atmospheric environments where the star sensor is immersed. This observation model takes the separation angles between the sun and star, the centroid algorithm and the various system specifications of the star sensor into the account. The developed star sensor model will provide more realistic measurement errors in estimating the performance of the attitude determination from the vector observations.

Keywords

• star sensor
• centroid error
• daytime star sensor model