A Sun Tracker for Planetary Analog Rovers

Abstract

This paper describes the principles, design, implementation, use, and performance of a sun tracker for fixed reference orientation estimation. With relatively simple, familiar, inexpensive and low power off-the-shelf components and straightfoward modeling and calibration, a sun tracker can provide full 3-DOF orientation with accuracy well within a degree of roll pitch and yaw, and without drift. This can enable high precision long distance navigation in a Mars relevant fashion, i.e. without use of physical properties such as Earth's magnetosphere or modern infrastructure such as GPS. Most importantly, the heading errors are fixed over time, unlike estimates derived from dead reckoning or integration of inertial rate sensors.