meetings - Space Flight Mechanics Committee

Feb 14, 2013 Kauai Salon 2
SESSION 26: ATTITUDE DETERMINATION, DYNAMICS, AND CONTROL -- IV
Chair: Dr. Maruthi R. Akella, The University of Texas at Austin
8:00 AAS An Accurate and Efficient Gaussian Fit Centroiding Algorithm for Star
13-475 Trackers
Tjorven Delabie, KU Leuven; Joris De Schutter, KU Leuven; Bart Vandenbussche,
KU Leuven
This paper presents a novel centroiding algorithm for star trackers. The proposed algorithm
fits an elliptical Gaussian function to the measured pixel data and derives explicit
expressions to determine the centroids of the stars. The algorithm proved in tests to yield
accuracy comparable to that of the most accurate existing algorithms, while being
significantly less computationally intensive. This reduction in computational cost allows to
improve performance by acquiring the attitude estimates at a higher rate. It is also a
valuable contribution to the expanding field of small satellites, where it could enable lowcost
platforms to have highly accurate attitude
8:20 AAS Attitude and Orbit Propagations of High Area-to-Mass Ratio (HAMR)
13-485 Objects Using a Semi-Coupled Approach
Carolin Früh, Air Force Research Laboratory; Moriba Jah, Air Force Research
Laboratory
In this paper a new approach is presented to propagate the attitude and orbital motion of
objects with high area-to-mass ratios (HAMR) in near geostationary orbit in a semi-coupled
approach. To ease the computational burden and allow real time applications, orbit and
attitude motion are not propagated as fully coupled system, but only initialized as fully
coupled and then decoupled and propagated independently, using the values derived in the
initialization step as a priori values. Entropy serves as a double metric and the system is
triggered to re-coupled again.
8:40 AAS Attitude Determination for the Van Allen Probes
13-476 Adam Fosbury, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
This paper describes the ground-based attitude estimation system used by the Van Allen
Probes. This system consists of three algorithms with varying levels of fidelity and
complexity. Attitude estimation results from each algorithm are presented along with
descriptions of, and solutions to, challenges encountered during the commissioning period.
Results have had better than expected accuracy, surpassing the spacecraft’s requirements.
9:00 AAS Sigma Point Transformation for Gaussian Mixture Distributions Applied to
13-478 Attitude Estimation
Richard Linares, University at Buffalo, State University of New York; John
Crassidis, University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Page 94
23 rd AAS / AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting