Star Tracking using an Event Camera

Event: CVPR 2025 · Duration: 2 min · ▶ Watch on YouTube

Abstract

This work focuses on determining the 3DoF orientation (roll, pitch, yaw) of spacecraft, known as attitude estimation, using star trackers. Traditional star trackers, while accurate, are resource-intensive and have dynamic range limitations. The presentation proposes a novel pipeline that utilizes energy-efficient event cameras with high dynamic range for star tracking. The method leverages rotation averaging and combines absolute and relative pose estimations to achieve efficient and accurate attitude determination, with a dataset made available for further research.

Speakers

  • Tat-Jun Chin — University of Adelaide
  • Samya Bagchi — University of Adelaide
  • Anders Eriksson — University of Queensland
  • Andre van Schaik — University of Western Sydney

Talks (1)

  • 00:00:00 — Anders Eriksson: Star Tracking using an Event Camera
    • This presentation introduces a novel pipeline for star tracking using event cameras to estimate spacecraft attitude, leveraging rotation averaging and combining absolute and relative poses for improved efficiency and accuracy.

Key Takeaways

  • Event cameras offer energy efficiency and high dynamic range, making them suitable for star tracking in resource-constrained satellites.
  • A proposed pipeline combines rotation averaging with absolute and relative pose estimations for robust and accurate attitude determination.
  • This approach addresses the increasing demand for efficient attitude tracking in smaller satellites and overcomes dynamic range limitations of traditional cameras.
  • The method aims to correct for drift using absolute rotations while maintaining speed through relative rotations.
  • A dataset used for this research is publicly available for download.

Methods / Models / Datasets Mentioned

  • Wahba's problem
  • Rotation Averaging

Topics

Star tracking · Event cameras · Attitude estimation · Spacecraft orientation · Satellite navigation · Rotation averaging · Resource efficiency · Dynamic range · Pose estimation

Notes

Open for commentary — connections to other work, critiques, follow-up reading.