A Miniaturized Micro-Digital Sun Sensor by Means of Low-Power Low-Noise CMOS Imager

Author

Ning Xie ; Theuwissen, Albert J. P.

Author_Institution

Shanghai Inst. of Tech. Phys., Shanghai, China

Volume

14

Issue

1

fYear

2014

fDate

Jan. 2014

Firstpage

96

Lastpage

103

Abstract

A digital sun sensor is superior to an analog sun sensor in aspects of resolution, albedo immunity, and integration. The proposed micro-digital sun sensor (μDSS) is an autonomous digital sun sensor that is implemented through a CMOS image sensor, which is named active pixel sensor (APS+). The μDSS is designed specifically for micro-satellite application that addresses for low power and high accuracy. The APS+ significantly reduces the power consumption by a profiling method and obtains low noise by a quadruple sampling method. Measurement results show that the μDSS achieves an accuracy of 0.01° with 21 mW at 10 fps, which is ten times less than the state of the art.

Keywords

CMOS image sensors; height measurement; low-power electronics; microsensors; space vehicles; active pixel sensor; albedo immunity; autonomous digital sun sensor; integration; low-power low-noise CMOS imager; miniaturized microdigital sun sensor; power 21 mW; power consumption; profiling method; quadruple sampling method; resolution; Accuracy; Capacitors; Couplings; Decision support systems; Layout; Noise; Sun; CMOS image sensor; digital sun sensor; low noise; low power;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Sensors Journal, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1530-437X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSEN.2013.2280453

Filename

6588567