MicroADS Spacecraft Attitude Determination System Instrument Software

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In order to operate correctly, spacecraft need to be able to determine their orientation ("attitude") relative to some other object or objects. A radically new attitude determination system (called MicroADS) has been invented at University of Sussex. It works on a different optical principle to existing instruments, and benefits from wider fields-of-view and better accuracies than comparable systems. To date, most work on the instrument has been hardware development. This new Innovation Fellowship project will develop the computer software (image processing techniques) required to turn the output from the hardware into a direction vector indicating the direction towards the light source being used for attitude determination. This direction vector, together with knowledge of the geometry of the instrument and knowledge of the location of the instrument on the spacecraft, will enable the spacecraft's attitude to be determined. In developing the instrument software, the Innovation Fellow will use image processing techniques previously used for tracking biological cells in microscope images.Post project, it is planned that MicroADS will be commercialised via a spinout company from University of Sussex.