{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,8]],"date-time":"2026-02-08T08:50:30Z","timestamp":1770540630556,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":21,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2014,3,11]],"date-time":"2014-03-11T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1394496000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/3.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Under highly dynamic conditions, the star-spots on the image sensor of a star tracker move across many pixels during the exposure time, which will reduce star detection sensitivity and increase star location errors. However, this kind of effect can be compensated well by setting an appropriate exposure time. This paper focuses on how exposure time affects the star tracker under highly dynamic conditions and how to determine the most appropriate exposure time for this case. Firstly, the effect of exposure time on star detection sensitivity is analyzed by establishing the dynamic star-spot imaging model. Then the star location error is deduced based on the error analysis of the sub-pixel centroiding algorithm. Combining these analyses, the effect of exposure time on attitude accuracy is finally determined. Some simulations are carried out to validate these effects, and the results show that there are different optimal exposure times for different angular velocities of a star tracker with a given configuration. In addition, the results of night sky experiments using a real star tracker agree with the simulation results. The summarized regularities in this paper should prove helpful in the system design and dynamic performance evaluation of the highly dynamic star trackers.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s140304914","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2014,3,11]],"date-time":"2014-03-11T12:09:38Z","timestamp":1394539778000},"page":"4914-4931","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":31,"title":["Exposure Time Optimization for Highly Dynamic Star Trackers"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Xinguo","family":"Wei","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Precision Opto-mechatronics Technology, Ministry of Education, School of Instrumentation Science and Opto-electronics Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China"}]},{"given":"Wei","family":"Tan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Precision Opto-mechatronics Technology, Ministry of Education, School of Instrumentation Science and Opto-electronics Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China"}]},{"given":"Jian","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Precision Opto-mechatronics Technology, Ministry of Education, School of Instrumentation Science and Opto-electronics Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China"}]},{"given":"Guangjun","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Precision Opto-mechatronics Technology, Ministry of Education, School of Instrumentation Science and Opto-electronics Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2014,3,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"10","DOI":"10.1109\/62.387971","article-title":"Star trackers for attitude determination","volume":"10","author":"Liebe","year":"1995","journal-title":"IEEE AES Syst. Mag."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Xu, S.X., Xiao, J., and Chen, Z.L. (2012, January 19\u201322). Overview on miniature star sensor technology based on CMOS active pixel sensor. Vancouver, BC, Canada.","DOI":"10.1109\/SYSoSE.2012.6333500"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Mcbryde, C.R., and Lightsey, E.G. (2012, January 3\u201310). A star tracker design for CubeSats. Big Sky, MT, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/AERO.2012.6187242"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Young, E.F., Percival, J.W., and Jaehnig, K.P. (2012, January 3\u201310). Sub-arcsecond performance of the ST5000 star tracker on a balloon-borne platform. Big Sky, MT, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/AERO.2012.6187179"},{"key":"ref_5","first-page":"2285","article-title":"Micro APS based star tracker","volume":"5","author":"Liebe","year":"2002","journal-title":"IEEE Aerosp. Conf. Proc."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zhang, H.X., and Li, J. (2009). The Effects of APS Star Tracker Detection Sensitivity. Proc. SPIE, 7160.","DOI":"10.1117\/12.805547"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2638","DOI":"10.1364\/JOSAA.27.002638","article-title":"Simulation analysis of dynamic working performance for star trackers","volume":"27","author":"Shen","year":"2010","journal-title":"Opt. Soc. Am."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"43","DOI":"10.1117\/12.426872","article-title":"CMOS Active Pixel Sensor Specific Performance Effects on Star Tracker\/Imager Position Accuracy","volume":"4284","author":"Hancock","year":"2001","journal-title":"Proc. SPIE"},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3145","DOI":"10.1007\/s11431-010-4129-7","article-title":"Systematic error analysis and compensation for high accuracy star centroid estimation of star tracker","volume":"53","author":"Jia","year":"2010","journal-title":"Sci. China Technol. Sci."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"135","DOI":"10.1016\/S0094-5765(02)00199-6","article-title":"Enhancement of the centroiding algorithm for star tracker measure refinement","volume":"53","author":"Rufino","year":"2003","journal-title":"Acta Astronaut."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"700","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cpc.2007.06.007","article-title":"Determining star-image location: A new sub-pixel interpolation technique to process image centroids","volume":"177","author":"Brendan","year":"2007","journal-title":"Comput. Phys. Commun."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"587","DOI":"10.1109\/TAES.2002.1008988","article-title":"Accuracy Performance of Star Trackers-A Tutorial","volume":"38","author":"Liebe","year":"2002","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst."},{"key":"ref_13","first-page":"37","article-title":"Study on detection sensitivity of star sensor in dynamic state","volume":"1","author":"Li","year":"2010","journal-title":"Aerosp. Control Appl."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Li, J., Liu, J.G., and Hao, Z.H. (2006). Active Pixel Sensor Geometrical Characteristic Effects on Star Image Subdivided Location accuracy for Star Tracker. Proc. SPIE, 6031.","DOI":"10.1117\/12.667919"},{"key":"ref_15","first-page":"6","article-title":"CMOS imaging sensors","volume":"5","author":"Eltoukhy","year":"2005","journal-title":"IEEE Circuit Devices Mag."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"92","DOI":"10.1109\/4.896233","article-title":"Analysis of temporal noise in CMOS photodiode active pixel sensor","volume":"36","author":"Tian","year":"2001","journal-title":"IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits"},{"key":"ref_17","first-page":"285","article-title":"Analysis of CMOS Photodiodes","volume":"5","author":"Lee","year":"2003","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Electron. Devices"},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"28","DOI":"10.1016\/j.sse.2009.09.003","article-title":"Analysis of noise in CMOS image sensor based on a unified time-dependent approach","volume":"54","author":"Brouk","year":"2010","journal-title":"Solid-State Electron."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1320","DOI":"10.1117\/12.55947","article-title":"Elimination of systematic error in subpixel accuracy centroid estimation","volume":"30","author":"Alexander","year":"1991","journal-title":"Opt. Eng."},{"key":"ref_20","unstructured":"Fowell, R.A., Li, R.S., and Wu, Y.W. (2009). Method for compensating star motion induced error in a stellar inertial attitude determination system. (U.S. Patent 7,487,016 b2)."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7341","DOI":"10.3390\/s110807341","article-title":"A Novel Systematic Error Compensation Algorithm Based on Least Squares Support Vector Regression for Star Sensor Image Centroid Estimation","volume":"11","author":"Yang","year":"2011","journal-title":"Sensors"}],"container-title":["Sensors"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/14\/3\/4914\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T21:09:06Z","timestamp":1760216946000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/14\/3\/4914"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2014,3,11]]},"references-count":21,"journal-issue":{"issue":"3","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2014,3]]}},"alternative-id":["s140304914"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/s140304914","relation":{},"ISSN":["1424-8220"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1424-8220","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2014,3,11]]}}}