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The fully calibrated system is capable of positioning point sources of light to within single arcseconds of angular accuracy, spanning eight orders of radiometric magnitude.
About
Background: Engineers in Prof. Simone D’Amico’s laboratory have developed a high fidelity, high-dynamic range testbed to stimulate a broad range of cameras and verify their functionality and performance for the next generation of vision-based satellite navigation. This portable, cost-effective, easy-to-calibrate system can be used on the ground to rapidly validate the performance of hardware, software and algorithms for cameras already integrated into a satellite bus. In addition, it operates in a closed-loop environment for both far- and short-range image simulation. This enables static and dynamic real-time testing prior to flight, taking into account a rapidly changing scene and geometric distortion. Stage of Research: The inventors built a prototype testbed and demonstrated operating modes to simulate static and dynamic scenes consisting of stellar and non-stellar objects. The fully calibrated system is capable of positioning point sources of light to within single arcseconds of angular accuracy, spanning eight orders of radiometric magnitude. Applications: Satellite navigation testing - verifies and validates functionality and performance of hardware, software and algorithms of cameras for navigation in space, including navigation with respect to stellar and non-stellar objects, such as: star-trackers for inertial attitude estimation on-board spacecraft cameras for satellite formation-flying, rendezvous and docking cameras for navigation with respect to planets, moons, asteroids and near-earth objects Advantages: High fidelity - precisely calibrated, geometrically and radiometrically to sub-arcseconds accuracy High-dynamic range - spanning eight orders of radiometric magnitude, from stellar to close space resident objects Miniature and portable testbed Broad compatibility with range of different sensor types to stimulate any camera Real-time, closed-loop system User-friendly calibration Modular design - 3D-printed structure that facilitates inter-component separation, alignment, orientation and interchangeability