Sub-Pixel Affine Registration of Space Debris Images via the Radon Point Spread Function

RESUMO

Inter-frame affine misalignment caused by platform jitter and attitude adjustments poses a fundamental challenge for multi-frame analysis of point targets in optical surveillance. Conventional registration methods rely on spatial intensity correlations or distinctive image features, both of which are largely absent in low-signal-to-noise-ratio point target imagery. We introduce the Radon Point Spread Function (RPSF) to characterize point targets in the Radon-transformed domain, and derive a closed-form framework that jointly estimates inter-frame translation and rotation from as few as four scalar RPSF samples per frame pair. The method requires no iterative optimization, feature extraction or interpolation, which is suitable for resource-constrained onboard processing. Simulation results confirm sub-pixel translation accuracy and a mean rotation error of 0.2556° at 1° Radon angular resolution. Validation on five real space debris datasets including both ground-based and in-orbit observations yields a mean calibration error below 0.5 pixels, substantially exceeding the precision required for reliable multi-frame processing.