An application of point pattern matching in astronautics

Abstract

We consider a point pattern matching problem occuring in astronautics: Given are pictures from a camera of unknown orientation, showing a section of the starry sky. We want to determine the orientation of the camera by matching the constellations in the pictures with a star catalogue. This problem occurs for satellite attitude determination with star field sensors. We present a new solution, which uses incremental Delaunay triangulation. © 1994 Academic Press Limited.