Method and apparatus for on-board autonomous pair catalog generation
US7136752B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 24, 2004 |
| Grant date | Nov 14, 2006 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jul 8, 2024 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG01C21/24
- WIPO fieldMeasurement
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
A system (18) includes: a) A vehicle (12) includes an attitude or angular velocity control system (38), a plurality of star trackers or star sensors (22) each having a field of view (28); b) a memory (30) having a star catalog (32), an allocated area for a star pair catalog (58) and a reference table (56) stored therein; and c) a processor (24) coupled to the attitude or angular velocity control system (38), the star trackers or star sensors (22), and the memory (30). The processor (24) populates the star pair catalog (58), using the method described herein. The processor (24) then periodically determines the vehicle inertial attitude or angular velocity or sensor alignment, based, in part, on the star pair catalog (58) and reference table (56). The novel ability of the software to autonomously populate the star pair catalog (58) allows users to avoid uploading a large amount of data, and the problems associated with such an upload.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.