EBS-EKF: Accurate and High Frequency Event-based Star Tracking

Figure 1 . We present EBS-EKF, an event-based star tracking algorithm that combines a novel centroiding technique with an extended Kalman filter and is validated using the first ground-truthed dataset of event streams from real stars. (a) Our centroiding technique accounts for event camera behavior in low light, enabling more accurate tracking. (b) We develop a data collection setup of a EVK4-HD event camera that is rigidly mounted and synchronized with a space-ready APS star tracker. The insets show APS (top) and event camera (bottom) pixels for 8 Cygni, a subgiant star in the constellation Cygnus. (c) We demonstrate that our attitude estimates (red) are more accurate than existing methods (purple) [29] , and that we can operate above the 3 deg/sec cutoff of the APS star tracker, highlighting the utility of our method for high-frequency star tracking.