Three-axis attitude accuracy of better than 5 arcseconds obtained for the star sensor in a long-term on-ship dynamic experiment.

Carried on the deck of the satellite maritime tracking and control ship, Yuan Wang 6, we have conducted a long-term on-ship dynamic experiment for a star sensor in the South Pacific. Motion-blurred star images of the star sensor obtained under different dynamic conditions are processed by our previously proposed region confined restoration method method, after which the SNR of the motion-blurred star images and the identification rate of the star sensor have been improved remarkably. With the attitude-correlated frames approach, the random noise aroused by the motion of the ship is reduced further. As a result, considering the accuracy and star observation length of the ship-borne star sensor, we believe reported for the first time, a three-axis attitude accuracy of better than 5 arcseconds is obtained in our on-ship experiment.