A SUN TRACKER FOR PLANETARY ANALOG ROVERS

摘要

This paper describes the principles, design, implementation,rnuse, and performance of a sun trackerrnfor fxed reference orientation estimation. With relativelyrnsimple, familiar, inexpensive and low powerrnou000b-the-shelf components and straightfoward modelingrnand calibration, a sun tracker can provide fullrn3-DOF orientation with accuracy well within a degreernof roll pitch and yaw, and without drift. Thisrncan enable high precision long distance navigation inrna Mars relevant fashion, i.e. without use of physicalrnproperties such as Earth's magnetosphere or modernrninfrastructure such as GPS. Most importantly, thernheading errors are fxed over time, unlike estimatesrnderived from dead reckoning or integration of inertialrnrate sensors.