Dual-field-of-view star sensors utilizing optical tagging approach by grating

Author

Shaobo Gao ; Shijian Lin ; Jichun Tan ; Haibo Liu ; Xiaofeng Wang ; Yunjin Chen

Author_Institution

Coll. of Sci., Nat. Univ. of Defense Technol., Changsha, China

fYear

2014

fDate

29-30 May 2014

Firstpage

185

Lastpage

189

Abstract

Star sensors play an important role in spacecraft attitude determination. It is common for the roll accuracy of a traditional star sensor with single field of view to be significantly worse than the cross-axis accuracy. Many satellites utilize two/three onboard star cameras for their attitude determination in x, y, z 3-axis. The dual-field-of-view star sensor has been proposed, which can image stars from two orthogonal directions on the same CCD simultaneously. This paper focuses on the critical issue of tagging the star spots from one of the fields of view so that these stars can be recognized. Star light from one direction is modulated by an optical grating in order to tag star images from this viewing field and distinguish them from the star images from another direction. Diffraction splits by phase gratings and amplitude gratings are compared in feasibility and complexity by numerical simulations.

Keywords

CCD image sensors; artificial satellites; attitude measurement; diffraction gratings; numerical analysis; optical modulation; optical sensors; CCD image sensor; amplitude grating; cross-axis accuracy; dual-field-of-view star sensor; numerical simulation; onboard star camera; optical grating modulation; optical tagging approach; phase grating; satellite; spacecraft attitude determination; star spots tagging; Charge coupled devices; Diffraction; Diffraction gratings; Gratings; Optical imaging; Optical sensors; Optical modulation; Optical sensors; grating;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Metrology for Aerospace (MetroAeroSpace), 2014 IEEE

Conference_Location

Benevento

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MetroAeroSpace.2014.6865917

Filename

6865917