Daron Nishimoto (Pacific Defense Solutions, LLC), David Archambeault (Pacific Defense Solutions, LLC), David Gerwe (The Boeing Company), Paul Kervin (Air Force Research Laboratory, RDSM)
Keywords: Non-Resolved Object Characterization
Abstract:
Photometric signatures of satellites collected from small aperture optical systems have the potential of providing valuable satellite information including operational status and attitude. Low cost, small aperture systems provide the capability to be transportable and therefore used in a wide variety of deployment scenarios. This research describes the benefits of prior knowledge of the satellite under consideration including general size, shape and typical material properties. By constraining the problem to a discrete set of satellite attitudes, curve matching algorithms can then be used to compare the measured photometric signature against those in the forward modeled database. TASAT simulations were used to create a database of forward modeled photometric signatures. In this paper, we explore two curve matching techniques. The first method was Kendall’s Tau which compares the shapes of two curves. The second method was the Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) which measures the similarity of two curves that have been processed to remove their mean values. The key findings of this study are the generation of a database of signatures to which a measured signal can be compared to extract attitude information about the satellite during a specific pass.
Date of Conference: September 14-17, 2010
Track: Non-resolved Object Characterization