Systems and methods for determining the position of a device or vehicle by using celestial information captured by an imaging apparatus. The systems and methods identify a star set in the celestial information, generate a star set fingerprint and compare the star set fingerprint with reference celestial information. Once a comparison is made, the location of the device or vehicle can be determined and used within a celestial navigation system.

Disclosed is a method for joint estimation of stellar atmospheric refraction and star tracker attitude, including: capturing, by a star tracker, an image of stars, and recognizing the image to obtain a matching relationship between an observed star and a reference star; transforming the reference star to a terrestrial reference frame based on time and position of observation to obtain a true zenith distance of the reference star; calculating an estimated stellar atmospheric refraction based on a simplified atmospheric refraction model, the true zenith distance, and an initial atmospheric refractive coefficient, and subjecting the reference star to stellar atmospheric refraction compensation; calculating the star tracker attitude, and re-projecting the observed star to the terrestrial reference frame to calculate the observed stellar atmospheric refraction and the stellar atmospheric refraction error; if the observed stellar atmospheric refraction is misaligned with the estimated stellar atmospheric refraction, adjusting the atmospheric refractive coefficient based on the stellar atmospheric refraction error, and then recompensating the reference star and calculating the attitude, till the observed stellar atmospheric refraction is aligned with the estimated stellar atmospheric refraction, whereby joint estimation results of the stellar atmospheric refraction and the star tracker attitude are obtained. The disclosure realizes real-time, autonomous estimation and cancelation of stellar atmospheric refraction without being limited by external sensors or empirical formulae.

A system and method for star tracking includes: capturing an image of stars; detecting and selecting visible stars from the captured image; extracting features from the selected stars by forming a convex hull from the selected stars to generate a spherical polygon; computing the area and higher order moments of the spherical polygon; and pattern matching the extracted feature against a database of star catalog. The pattern matching includes matching the area of the spherical polygon to a plurality of polygon areas stored in the database and when the number of the matching candidates is more than one, matching a next extracted higher order moment with a respective higher order moment in the database, and repeating said matching of the next extracted higher order moment until the number of the matching candidates is equal to one.

A celestial navigation system and method for determining a position of a vehicle. The system includes a star-tracker, a beam director, an inertial measurement unit, and a control module. The star-tracker has a field of view for capturing light. The beam director is configured to change a direction of the light captured in the field of view of the star-tracker. The inertial measurement unit has a plurality of sensors for measuring an acceleration and a rotation rate of the vehicle. The control module executes instructions to correct the attitude, the velocity and the position of the vehicle using the determined magnitude and position of the space objects. The control module also executes instructions to generate corrections to the IMU error parameters, the beam director and star-tracker alignment errors, and RSO ephemeris errors to achieve optimal performance.

Optical unit for a projective optical metrological system, which receives a light signal coming from a light constellation comprising a number of light sources; the optical unit includes: an optoelectronic image acquisition system and a first and a second optical circuit, which receive the light signal and are traversed by a first and a second optical beam, respectively. The first and the second optical circuits direct, respectively, at least a first part of the first optical beam and at least a first part of the second optical beam on the optoelectronic image acquisition system, so as to cause the simultaneous formation of two different images of the constellation in the optoelectronic image acquisition system. The optical unit further includes an electronic processing unit coupled to the optoelectronic image acquisition system, which determines a number of quantities indicative of the position and/or attitude of the light constellation with respect to the optical unit, based on the two images. The optical unit further includes an optical receiver and a derivation optical circuit configured to optically couple the optical receiver and at least one of the first and the second optical circuit, so that the optical receiver receives an optical information signal, which is a function of at least one of the first and the second optical beams. The optical receiver demodulates digital data from the optical information signal.

A method to control a streetlight with a smart streetlight controller, includes isolating a terrestrial position of the smart streetlight controller, isolating a specific date, and calculating, at the smart streetlight controller, a time value associated with an event, such as sunrise or sunset, that is defined by a position of the sun on the specific date. The method further includes generating a streetlight control time by applying an offset to the time value, and executing a streetlight control command, such as a command to turn the streetlight on or off, at the streetlight control time.

Optical image sensor systems and process for simultaneously tracking multiple stationary or moving objects to provide attitude and geolocation information are provided. The objects are detected and tracked within subframe areas defined within a field of view of the image sensor system. Multiple objects within the field of view can be detected and tracked using parallel processing streams. Processing subframe areas can include applying precomputed detector data to image data. Image data within each subframe area obtained from a series of image frames is aggregated to enable the centroid of an object within a particular subframe to be located. Information from an inertial measurement unit can be applied to maintain a stationary object, such as a star, at the center of a respective subframe. Ephemeris data can be applied in combination with the information from the IMU to track a resident space object traversing a known trajectory.

A master control system for a remote-sensing satellite image processing device, the system including: a master control management module, a first FPGA module, and a second FPGA module. The master control management module is in connection and communication with the first FPGA module, the second FPGA module, and a housekeeping computer. The first FPGA module is in connection and communication with the second FPGA module and a remote-sensing satellite image processing device. The master control management module is adapted to perform assignment of tasks. The first FPGA module is adapted to communicate with a processor in the satellite image processing device, monitor an operation state of the satellite image processing device, send the operation state information to the master control management module, receive a task assignment command issued by the master control management module, and transmit the task assignment command to the satellite image processing device.

Discussed herein are devices, systems, and methods for improved trajectory planning. A method can include providing two of (i) a first value indicating a change in velocity to alter an orbit of a first object to a transfer orbit; (ii) a second value indicating a range between the first object and a second object; or (iii) a third value indicating an altitude of the first object relative to a celestial body around which the first and second objects are orbiting as input to a machine learning (ML) model, receiving, from the ML model, a holdout value, the holdout value a prediction of the value, of the first value, the second value, and the third value, that was not provided to the ML model, and providing the holdout value to an orbital planner.

A satellite attitude estimation system 20 includes a determination unit 21 which determines the maximum pixel, which is a pixel with the largest luminance, and the minimum pixel, which is a pixel with the smallest luminance, respectively, in an infrared image, which is an image taken by an infrared sensor of a target satellite that is a satellite whose attitude is to be estimated, an association unit 22 which associates the determined maximum and minimum pixels with coordinates on the 3D structure of the target satellite, respectively, a computation unit 23 which computes normal vectors for a surface including the coordinates associated with the pixel, respectively, over the coordinates associated with each pixel, and a sun direction estimation unit 24 which estimates the direction of the sun relative to the target satellite before the infrared image is taken using the computed normal vectors.