DEVELOPMENT OF A SKY SIMULATION ALGORITHM FOR THE CALIBRATION OF STAR DETECTORS AND ANALYSIS OF ATTITUDE ESTIMATION ERRORS

This study presents an algorithm for starry sky image synthesis intended for debugging and calibrating star detectors. The proposed algorithm generates images of the starry sky as they would be observed by a star detector mounted on an aircraft or a maritime vessel, taking into account the platform’s geographic coordinates, attitude, and velocity. The simulation incorporates the detector’s spatial resolution and spectral sensitivity, with particular emphasis on infrared (IR) radiation in J, H, and K photometric bands. An algorithm implemented in MATLAB was used to produce synthetic starry sky images, which were subsequently processed using star identification and attitude determination methods in order to ensure that simulated images can be used in practice. Next, a comparative analysis of attitude estimation errors was conducted for several commonly employed attitude determination algorithms, providing quantitative insights into their performance under simulated observational conditions.