Laboratory testing and calibration of the APS-based miniature sun sensor prototype

The paper comprises design and a calibration campaign of the low-cost APS-based miniature digital sun sensor which has been developed at the University of Naples “Federico II”. Design of the miniature sun sensor is described and the laboratory test facility is presented in details. The paper is focused on tests and calibration of the sensor. A set of different calibration functions have been adopted. They are based, respectively, on various interpolation and approximation techniques and on neural networks. Calibration results are presented for the above solutions showing that accuracy of the order of 0.01$^\circ$ has been achieved.