Abstract:
An infrared measurement system was designed for relative position determination of inner-formation gravity satellite (IFGS), which was a new kind of spacecraft system to measure the Earth's gravity field. The process of determining the relative position between the moving inner-satellite and its cavity should be highly precise and without any non-gravitational disturbing forces such as light pressure, electromagnetic radiation and so on. The above requirement was handled through some novel designs which were based on the idea of thermal-electronic-mechanical integration technology. These designs include as follows: cavity configuration and cameras arrangement, layout of imaging circuits, a dynamic loop and stable thermal environment, a novel calibration equipment with delta mechanism and a suitable strategy of cross location. Though the above designs, experimental results show that infrared images with good signal noise ratio can be acquired, which are sufficient to determinate the accurate position of the inner-satellite via some smart image process algorithms. The integrated technology described in the paper provides a long-time precise measurement with the premise that disturbing forces be restrained.