Enabling Boomless CubeSat Magnetic Field Measurements With the Quad‐Mag Magnetometer and an Improved Underdetermined Blind Source Separation Algorithm

Abstract

In situ magnetic field measurements are often difficult to obtain due to the presence of stray magnetic fields generated by spacecraft electrical subsystems. The conventional solution is to implement strict magnetic cleanliness requirements and place magnetometers on a deployable boom. However, this method is not always feasible on low‐cost platforms due to factors such as increased design complexity, increased cost, and volume limitations. To overcome these problems, we propose using the Quad‐Mag CubeSat magnetometer with an improved Underdetermined Blind Source Separation (UBSS) noise removal algorithm. The Quad‐Mag consists of four magnetometer sensors in a single CubeSat form‐factor card that allows distributed measurements of stray magnetic fields. The UBSS algorithm can remove stray magnetic fields without prior knowledge of the magnitude, orientation, or number of noise sources. UBSS is a two‐stage algorithm that identifies signals through cluster analysis and separates them through compressive sensing. We use UBSS with single‐source point detection to improve the identification of noise signals and iteratively‐weighted compressed sensing to separate noise signals from the ambient magnetic field. Using a mock CubeSat, we demonstrate in the lab that UBSS reduces four noise signals producing more than 100 nT of noise at each magnetometer to below the expected instrument resolution (5 nT at 65 Hz). Additionally, we show that the integrated Quad‐Mag and improved UBSS system works well for 1U, 2U, 3U, and 6U CubeSats in simulation. Our results show that the Quad‐Mag and UBSS noise cancellation package enables high‐fidelity magnetic field measurements from a CubeSat without a boom.

Development of a payload for monitoring biological samples in microgravity and hypergravity conditions

“…These high-resolution images can be seamlessly transmitted to the cloud via Wi-Fi communication or alternatively stored on a micro-SD card for future retrieval. exploration platforms [24], [25]. Its versatile capabilities allow for the seamless capture and storage of images of both organic and inorganic materials, facilitating comprehensive studies of their behavior in diverse gravitational environments.…”

Wavelet-Adaptive Interference Cancellation for Underdetermined Platforms: Enhancing Boomless Magnetic Field Measurements on Compact Spacecraft

“…With the stray magnetic field signal estimate, we can subtract it from the magnetometer signals to obtain the wavelet coefficients of the ambient magnetic field, as shown in (10).…”

“…This is rarely the case since spacecraft typically have many electrical subsystems [8]. A more generalized approach, Underdetermined Blind Source Separation (UBSS), relies on cluster analysis and compressive sensing to separate signals based on their spectral composition [9], [10]. Although UBSS outperforms PCA and ICA, it is computationally demanding and necessitates that the interference and ambient magnetic field signals have sparse spectral signatures.…”