A Low-Cost Photodiode Sun Sensor for CubeSat and Planetary Microrover
This paper presents the development of low-cost methodologies to determine the attitude of a small, CubeSat-class satellite and a microrover relative to the sun's direction. The use of commercial hardware and simple embedded designs has become an effective path for university programs to put ex...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wiley
2013-01-01
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| Series: | International Journal of Aerospace Engineering |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/549080 |
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| Summary: | This paper presents the development of low-cost methodologies to determine the attitude of a small, CubeSat-class satellite and a microrover relative to the sun's direction. The use of commercial hardware
and simple embedded designs has become an effective path for university programs to put experimental
payloads in space for minimal cost, and the development of sensors for attitude and heading determination
is often a critical part. The development of two compact and efficient but simple coarse sun sensor
methodologies is presented in this research. A direct measurement of the solar angle uses a photodiode
array sensor and slit mask. Another estimation of the solar angle uses current measurements from
orthogonal arrays of solar cells. The two methodologies are tested and compared on ground hardware.
Testing results show that coarse sun sensing is efficient even with minimal processing and complexity
of design for satellite attitude determination systems and rover navigation systems. |
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| ISSN: | 1687-5966 1687-5974 |