Guided only by the specifications given for the sensors of the ArduSat and after some hours of brainstorming ideas, some in the wrong direction but few of them in the right one ,we realized that we can use the camera with 1.3MP and make an Earth Horizon Sensor and a Sun sensor also.We also used the magnetometer of the ArduSat to measure the magnetic field of the Earth and make an early warning system about the solar storms.Additionally we made an Android application for using the magnetometer.

This project is solving the ArduSat challenge.


Description

With the processing of the image and a little programming in Python with some easy steps and easy mathematics the sensor detects the horizon of the Earth and the program draws a line on the place where the horizon is.That is about the Earth Horizon sensor that we made.On the other hand we implemented very inventive and simple Sun sensor algorithm. The algorithm uses big dimensions Gaussian smoothing for averaging of the pixels and after that we just search for the brightest pixel in the frame. After all the Sun is the reference point in our solar system,so it is very important to have a Sun sensor that is going to detect the Sun.

[Software challenge]

Additionally we're using the magnetometer of the ArduSat to scan and measure the magnetic field of the planet so that we can use it for early warning system about solar storms and in the future show it in real-time on the website We also made an android application for using the magnetometer and send data about the magnetic field strenght to our website where one global Earth magnetic map will be build.

All of this above will be visible on a website which is going to be updated more frequently (depending on the use of the ArduSat)



Project Information

License: GNU General Public License
Source Code/Project URL: https://github.com/SpasovskiFilip/ardusat2earth

Resources

-website- - http://ardusat2earth.scienceontheweb.net/
Presentation of Our Idea + Detailed Overview - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g5isaidd8ou9khk/yo6bG1Fwqg