MEMS based sun sensor on a chip

Author

Mobasser, Sohrab ; Liebe, Carl Christian

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

2

fYear

2003

fDate

23-25 June 2003

Firstpage

1483

Abstract

A prototype sun sensor has been developed. It consists of a thin slice of silicon coated with a layer of chrome and a layer of gold with hundreds of small pinholes, placed on top of an active pixel sensors (APS) image detector at a distance of 500 microns. Images of the sun are formed on the APS image detector when the sun illuminates the mask. Image processing of the sun image is performed externally to the chip. Sun angles are derived by determining the precise location of the sun images on the detector - just like a sundial. The envelope of the sun sensor is 10×15×1.5 mm, it has a mass of 0.5 gram and the power consumption is 30 mW. The accuracy of the MEMS based sun sensor on a chip is estimated to be 1 arcminute.

Keywords

attitude measurement; image sensors; microsensors; space vehicles; 0.5 gm; 30 mW; 500 micron; APS; MEMS; active pixel sensor; image detector; image processing; microelectromechanical system; sun angle; sun sensor; Detectors; Energy consumption; Gold; Image processing; Image sensors; Micromechanical devices; Pixel; Prototypes; Silicon; Sun;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Control Applications, 2003. CCA 2003. Proceedings of 2003 IEEE Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7729-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CCA.2003.1223233

Filename

1223233