A Method on Airborne Daytime Star Sensors Detection Stability Improvement

In order to increase the adaption of airborne daytime star tracker for sky luminance and airborne dynamic, a method on detection stability improvement for airborne daytime star sensors is raised. First, the star image is stabilized by a fast-steering mirror based micro-mechanical image stabilization system. Then the signal-to-noise ratio of the star image is increased via a multi-frame incremental algorithm. Consequently, the detection stability of airborne daytime star sensors is improved. The experiment results show that the detection stability is enhanced 4 times using this method. It is already applied in the engineering prototype of airborne daytime star sensor and shows great performance.

A micromechanical image stabilization system based on high-speed tilted mirrors is proposed to address the characteristics of scattered light intensity in the daytime sky background and large airborne dynamics of airborne star sensors. This system significantly improves the instability of star images caused by carrier rotation, movement, and shaking. Through experimental testing and verification, the combination of a high-speed tilted mirror based micro mechanical image stabilization system and a multi frame star map iteration algorithm can improve the stability of star measurement by about 4 times. On this basis, future work will optimize parameters such as the image stabilization frequency of high-speed tilted mirrors, the number of star map iteration frames, and threshold threshold to further improve the star sensor’s star measurement stability.