Development of a low-cost sun sensor for nanosatellites

Antonello, Alessandro; Olivieri, Lorenzo; Francesconi, Alessandro

doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2018.01.003

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Aerospace 2020, 7, x 11 of 18 was justified after verifying that a linearity dependence exists between the Sun simulator dimmer level and the raw readings from the illuminated CMOS (provided that the camera exposure time is properly set to avoid saturation). By varying the position of the sensor over the width of the light beam, the divergence could be estimated from the position of the centroid of the bright spot within the image (see Figure 10), i.e., using the same working principle of pinhole Sun sensors [48,49]. During the experimental campaign, we also verified that the beam divergence is practically unaffected by variations of the working distance L of up to about 20 cm [50].…”

Section: Optimization and Verification Of The Sun Simulatormentioning

confidence: 72%

A Dynamic Testbed for Nanosatellites Attitude Verification

et al. 2020

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To enable a reliable verification of attitude determination and control systems for nanosatellites, the environment of low Earth orbits with almost disturbance-free rotational dynamics must be simulated. This work describes the design solutions adopted for developing a dynamic nanosatellite attitude simulator testbed at the University of Bologna. The facility integrates several subsystems, including: (i) an air-bearing three degree of freedom platform, with automatic balancing system, (ii) a Helmholtz cage for geomagnetic field simulation, (iii) a Sun simulator, and (iv) a metrology vision system for ground-truth attitude generation. Apart from the commercial off-the-shelf Helmholtz cage, the other subsystems required substantial development efforts. The main purpose of this manuscript is to offer some cost-effective solutions for their in-house development, and to show through experimental verification that adequate performances can be achieved. The proposed approach may thus be preferred to the procurement of turn-key solutions, when required by budget constraints. The main outcome of the commissioning phase of the facility are: a residual disturbance torque affecting the air bearing platform of less than 5 × 10 −5 Nm, an attitude determination rms accuracy of the vision system of 10 arcmin, and divergence of the Sun simulator light beam of less than 0.5 • in a 35 cm diameter area.

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Section: Optimization and Verification Of The Sun Simulatormentioning

confidence: 72%

A Dynamic Testbed for Nanosatellites Attitude Verification

et al. 2020

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“…The purpose of this research, similar to that in, 3 is to assess the concept of using a simple pinhole camera as a low-cost high-accuracy sun sensor for CubeSat application. However, in contrast to, 3 this research uses a low-fidelity model to both get an idea of what the worst-case performance would be and examine the impact that imperfections in the design would have on the results. A pinhole camera is the variation of the first measurement principle where the slit is replaced with a small hole and the photodiode array is replaced with an image sensor.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a high-accuracy low-cost sun sensor for CubeSat application

Oneill¹,

Bressan²,

McSorley³

et al. 2020

AAOAJ

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Sun sensors are commonly employed to determine the attitude of a spacecraft by defining the unit sun vector, which points from the center of the spacecraft's local reference frame toward the center of the sun. That information can then be used to satisfy the pointing requirements of an attitude control system, such as the one to be implemented on the SpudNik-1 CubeSat; this system requires knowledge of attitude to within 0.13 degrees, making high-accuracy sun sensors a necessity. However, like most off-the-shelf space hardware, commercially available high-accuracy sun sensors are expensive, making it difficult for teams working on space projects to both meet their pointing requirements and comply with their financial constraints.

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“…Determination of solar orientation is a critical technique that has a wide range of applications, including spacecraft attitude estimation [1,2] assisted positioning for planetary rovers [3] ground-based navigation systems [4] and efficiency improvement of solar power plants [5]. In the aerospace fields that require high accuracy solar orientation, sun sensors based on optical imaging are used, such as complementary metal-oxide semiconductors [6,7] charge-coupled-devices [8] and micro-electro-mechanical systems [9,10]. These sensors usually consist of a set of optical and mechanical elements, and measure the image position of the Sun on the planar array through a small masking hole/slit.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methods for Assessing and Optimizing Solar Orientation by Non-Planar Sensor Arrays

Wang

Fan

Yang

et al. 2019

Sensors

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Non-planar sensor arrays are used to determine solar orientation based on the orientation matrix formed by orientation vectors of the sensor planes. Solar panels or existing photodiodes can be directly used without increasing the size or mass of the spacecraft. However, a limiting factor for the improvement of the accuracy of orientation lies with the lack of an assessment-based approach. A formulation was developed for the supremum (i.e., the least upper bound) of orientation error of an arbitrary orientation matrix in terms of its influencing factors. The new formulation offers a way to evaluate the supremum of orientation error considering interference with finite energy and interference with infinite energy but finite average energy. For a given non-planar sensor array, a sub-matrix of the full orientation matrix would reach the optimal accuracy of orientation if its supremum of orientation error is the least. Principles for designing an optimal sensor array relate to the configuration of the orientation matrix, which can be pre-determined for a given number of sensors. Simulations and field experiment tested and validated the methods, showing that our sensor array optimization method outperforms the existing methods, while providing a way of assessment and optimization.

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Development of a low-cost sun sensor for nanosatellites

Cited by 13 publications

References 7 publications

A Dynamic Testbed for Nanosatellites Attitude Verification

A Dynamic Testbed for Nanosatellites Attitude Verification

Development of a high-accuracy low-cost sun sensor for CubeSat application

Methods for Assessing and Optimizing Solar Orientation by Non-Planar Sensor Arrays

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