On-board correction of systematic error of Earth sensors

Author

Alex, T.K. ; Shrivastava, S.K.

Author_Institution

Indian Space Res. Organ. Satellite Center, Bangalore, India

Volume

25

Issue

3

fYear

1989

fDate

5/1/1989 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

373

Lastpage

379

Abstract

Infrared Earth sensors are used in spacecraft for attitude sensing. Their accuracy is limited by systematic and random errors. Dominant sources of systematic errors are analyzed for a typical scanning infrared Earth sensor used in a remote-sensing satellite in a 900-km Sun-synchronous orbit. The errors considered arise from seasonable variation of infrared radiation; oblate shape of the Earth; ambient temperature of sensors; changes in spin/scan period; and misalignment of the axis of the sensors. Simple relations are derived using least-squares curve fitting for onboard correction of these errors. With these, it is possible to improve the accuracy of attitude determination by eight fold and achieve performance comparable to ground-based post-facto attitude computation

Keywords

aerospace computing; aerospace instrumentation; artificial satellites; attitude control; digital simulation; infrared detectors; least squares approximations; measurement errors; remote sensing; 900×10³ micron; 900-km Sun-synchronous orbit; aerospace instrumentation; ambient temperature; attitude sensing; digital simulation; least-squares curve fitting; misalignment; oblate shape; onboard correction; pitch angle; remote-sensing satellite; roll angle; scanning infrared Earth sensor; seasonable variation; spin/scan period; systematic errors; Earth; Error analysis; Error correction; Infrared sensors; Position measurement; Remote sensing; Satellites; Sensor systems; Space vehicles; Temperature sensors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Aerospace and Electronic Systems, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9251

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/7.30792

Filename

30792