Laser beacon tracking for high-accuracy attitude determination
CubeSat pointing capabilities have greatly improved in the past few years, paving the way for more sophisticated science and technology demonstration missions. Advances in attitude determination have led to the development of several CubeSat-sized attitude sensors capable of achieving fine attitude...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Utah State University
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112332 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5601-0978 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7791-5124 |
| _version_ | 1826216260896030720 |
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| author | Nguyen, Tam Nguyen Thuc Cahoy, Kerri |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Nguyen, Tam Nguyen Thuc Cahoy, Kerri |
| author_sort | Nguyen, Tam Nguyen Thuc |
| collection | MIT |
| description | CubeSat pointing capabilities have greatly improved in the past few years, paving the way for more sophisticated science and technology demonstration missions. Advances in attitude determination have led to the development of several CubeSat-sized attitude sensors capable of achieving fine attitude knowledge, most of which utilize natural light sources as references, such as in the case of star trackers and sun sensors. However, inertial-based attitude sensors often limit ground tracking capability of the satellite due to high ephemeris uncertainty of most CubeSats. Laser beacon tracking directly measures of the satellite’s attitude relative to a ground station or target, eliminating attitude errors induced in the coordinate frame conversion process. In addition, the use of a narrow-band artificial light source allows filtering techniques to be implemented, reducing the probability of false positives. In this paper, we present the development of a low-cost CubeSat-sized laser beacon camera along with detailed simulation development and results to demonstrate the attitude sensing performance of the module. The end-to-end simulation includes a laser link radiometry model, hardware model, atmospheric scintillation model, and sky radiance model at the beacon wavelength. Simulation results show that the laser beacon camera is capable of achieving an attitude accuracy of less than 0.1 mrad with a fade probability of less than 1% during daytime under most sky conditions for a satellite above 20o elevation in low-Earth orbit. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:44:52Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/112332 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:44:52Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Utah State University |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1123322022-10-04T04:05:52Z Laser beacon tracking for high-accuracy attitude determination Nguyen, Tam Nguyen Thuc Cahoy, Kerri Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Nguyen, Tam Nguyen Thuc Nguyen, Tam Nguyen Thuc Cahoy, Kerri CubeSat pointing capabilities have greatly improved in the past few years, paving the way for more sophisticated science and technology demonstration missions. Advances in attitude determination have led to the development of several CubeSat-sized attitude sensors capable of achieving fine attitude knowledge, most of which utilize natural light sources as references, such as in the case of star trackers and sun sensors. However, inertial-based attitude sensors often limit ground tracking capability of the satellite due to high ephemeris uncertainty of most CubeSats. Laser beacon tracking directly measures of the satellite’s attitude relative to a ground station or target, eliminating attitude errors induced in the coordinate frame conversion process. In addition, the use of a narrow-band artificial light source allows filtering techniques to be implemented, reducing the probability of false positives. In this paper, we present the development of a low-cost CubeSat-sized laser beacon camera along with detailed simulation development and results to demonstrate the attitude sensing performance of the module. The end-to-end simulation includes a laser link radiometry model, hardware model, atmospheric scintillation model, and sky radiance model at the beacon wavelength. Simulation results show that the laser beacon camera is capable of achieving an attitude accuracy of less than 0.1 mrad with a fade probability of less than 1% during daytime under most sky conditions for a satellite above 20o elevation in low-Earth orbit. 2017-12-01T14:50:20Z 2017-12-01T14:50:20Z 2015-08 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112332 Nguyen, Tam and Cahoy, Kerri. "Laser beacon tracking for high-accuracy attitude determination." Proceedings of the AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, Technical Session VIII: Student Competition, SSC15-VIII-2. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2015/all2015/55/ © 2015 The Author(s) https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5601-0978 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7791-5124 en_US https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2015/all2015/55/ Proceedings of the AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf Utah State University Nguyen |
| spellingShingle | Nguyen, Tam Nguyen Thuc Cahoy, Kerri Laser beacon tracking for high-accuracy attitude determination |
| title | Laser beacon tracking for high-accuracy attitude determination |
| title_full | Laser beacon tracking for high-accuracy attitude determination |
| title_fullStr | Laser beacon tracking for high-accuracy attitude determination |
| title_full_unstemmed | Laser beacon tracking for high-accuracy attitude determination |
| title_short | Laser beacon tracking for high-accuracy attitude determination |
| title_sort | laser beacon tracking for high accuracy attitude determination |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112332 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5601-0978 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7791-5124 |
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