Research on a method of polarization azimuth calculation with photoelectric sensor

The distribution pattern of sky-light polarization is relatively stable. Many animals use sky-light polarization for navigation. The bionic polarized navigation is of great significance in modem navigation. Effective polarization information-access is prerequisite and guarantee for polarized navigation. In this paper, a polarization azimuth calculation method based on six-channel polarization sensor, which is analogous to ant´s compound eye, is proposed for polarized navigation system. This method predetermines polarization azimuth range, and then chooses right channels reasonably. Based on the above, it avoids the divisor in a division operation to be zero, and has high precision. Compared to conventional method, the numerical simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed calculation method.