star pattern recognition

[tec]

Hello Everyone,

I have been tasked by my boss to come up with an alorithm to recognize a spacecraft's orientation given the spacecraft's CCTV image. Most spacecrafts have an IMU (inertial measurement unit) that tells which way the spacecraft is pointing. To calibrate the spacecraft, the IMU must use the stars to calibrate and tune its IMU's understanding of spacecraft's orientation.

I have to come up with a way to use a star cataloge to calculate a quaternion given a bitmap of stars. I am able to use the stars that are 6.5 or brighter. I am going to test the algorithm using Celestia. I have been through Celestia's pick mode and I am going to add another mode that runs through my algorithm.

Has anyone done such an algorithm? I read through a few white papers but they are about 10 years old. I need an algorithm that runs fast.

Thanks
Tim

[Joe]

Tim

There is a project name SignPost http://www.spacesignpost.com/cruise.html which may have some hint for you?

[selden]

Tim,

As I'm sure you're aware, this is an "already solved problem." There have been quite a few papers written about it, kids are doing it in science fairs, and, as indicated by the site that Joe referenced, it has even become available for consumer use.

A web search for "star pattern recognition" turns up many references.

Here are a few:

http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/aiaa/lal/lljun ... nd_bio.doc

http://www.ces.clemson.edu/~stb/ece847/ ... proj22.doc

http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~johnc/star_gnc04.pdf