Attitude Sensor from Ellipsoid Observations: A Numerical and Experimental Validation

The preliminary design and validation of a novel, high accuracy horizon-sensor for small satellites is presented, which is based on the theory of attitude determination from ellipsoid observations. The concept consists of a multi-head infrared sensor capturing images of the Earth limb. By fitting an ellipse to the imaged limb arcs, and exploiting some analytical results available from projective geometry, a closed form solution for computing the attitude matrix is provided. The algorithm is developed in a dimensionless framework, requiring the knowledge of the shape of the imaged target, but not of its size. As a result, the solution is less sensitive to the limb shift caused by the atmospheric own radiance. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, a numerical simulator is developed, which generates images captured in low Earth orbit, including also the presence of the atmosphere. In addition, experimental validation is provided due to a dedicated testbed, making use of a miniature infrared camera. Results show that our sensor concept returns rms errors of few hundredths of a degree or less in determining the local nadir direction.