False Star Filtering for Star Sensor Based on Angular Distance Tracking

The reliability of star sensor in a harsh environment has recently become a research hotspot. In some harsh environment such as plume interference, a large number of false stars can be observed, leading to failure in star identification. In this paper, we propose a false star filtering algorithm, which can be used as a preprocessing algorithm for any existing star identification algorithm. By utilizing the difference between the motion of false stars and true stars, the algorithm performs angular distance tracking and star voting on multiple consecutive frames of star images and achieves false star filtering. The software simulation results show that for the star images containing more than 700 false stars, the algorithm is able to find out all true stars in less than 10 frames, and the success rate of the algorithm remains high when the star sensor rotates at up to 1°/s. The algorithm is also implemented on an existing star senor and evaluated with star images generated by a dynamic star simulator. The experimental results indicate that with the help of the proposed algorithm, the robustness of a normal star identification algorithm can be significantly improved.