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Sensors for Space Applications
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Sensors for Space Applications

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 July 2024 | Viewed by 9850

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Ignacio Mateos

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Applied Magnetism and Optics Group, Universidad de Cádiz, 11519 Cádiz, Spain
Interests: magnetic sensors; low-noise electronic design; noise reduction techniques; space applications; magnetometry; electronics; electronic instrumentation; sensors; CubeSats; gravitational waves
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last few decades, space missions have pushed the limits to achieve scientific objectives by expanding the frontier of knowledge and developing emerging technologies. These cutting-edge advances allow the designing of instrumentation for ultra-stable high-precision measurements that enhance the disciplines beyond their previous states-of-art. The achievement of these goals represents the establishment of new strategies for carrying out challenging space measurements that are grounded in the standard constraints of spacecraft-borne sensors, such as mass, power, and the effects of the harsh space environment.

This Special Issue, which includes regular research articles and review articles, aims to disseminate recent advances in the design and development of  sensors and dedicated instrumentation for space. In addition, we invite authors to contribute on topics that encompass the numerous strategies for improving the characteristics, reliability, technological maturity, or in-flight heritage of space hardware at the component, subystem, or system level. The range of space applications includes, but is not restricted to, the following areas:

  • In-orbit demostration/in-orbit validation experiments;
  • Earth observation;
  • Solar system exploration;
  • Exoplanets;
  • Space-borne fundamental physics experiments;
  • Astrophysics, astronomy and cosmology;
  • Space-based gravitational wave detectors;
  • Nanosatellites.

Dr. Ignacio Mateos
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Magnetometer
  • Temperature sensor
  • Gravitational reference sensor
  • ADCS (Attitude Determination and Control System)
  • Start tracker
  • Sun sensor
  • Camera
  • Gyroscope
  • Accelerometer
  • Pressure gauge
  • Interferometer
  • Radiation monitor
  • Spectrometer
  • Remote sensing
  • Radiometer

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 12132 KiB  
Article
A Lightweight Method for Detecting and Correcting Errors in Low-Frequency Measurements for In-Orbit Demonstrators
by María-Ángeles Cifredo-Chacón, José-María Guerrero-Rodríguez and Ignacio Mateos
Sensors 2024, 24(4), 1065; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s24041065 - 06 Feb 2024
Viewed by 476
Abstract
In the pursuit of enhancing the technological maturity of innovative magnetic sensing techniques, opportunities presented by in-orbit platforms (IOD/IOV experiments) provide a means to evaluate their in-flight capabilities. The Magnetic Experiments for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (MELISA) represent a set of in-flight [...] Read more.
In the pursuit of enhancing the technological maturity of innovative magnetic sensing techniques, opportunities presented by in-orbit platforms (IOD/IOV experiments) provide a means to evaluate their in-flight capabilities. The Magnetic Experiments for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (MELISA) represent a set of in-flight demonstrators designed to characterize the low-frequency noise performance of a magnetic measurement system within a challenging space environment. In Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, electronic circuits are exposed to high levels of radiation coming from energetic particles trapped by the Earth’s magnetic field, solar flares, and galactic cosmic rays. A significant effect is the accidental bit-flipping in memory registers. This work presents an analysis of memory data redundancy resources using auxiliary second flash memory and exposes recovery options to retain critical data utilizing a duplicated data structure. A new and lightweight technique, CCM (Cross-Checking and Mirroring), is proposed to verify the proper performance of these techniques. Four alternative algorithms included in the original version of the MELISA software (Version v0.0) are presented. All the versions have been validated and evaluated according to various merit indicators. The evaluations showed similar performances for the proposed techniques, and they are valid for situations in which the flash memory suffers from more than one bit-flip. The overhead due to the introduction of additional instructions to the main code is negligible, even in the target experiment based on an 8-bit microcontroller. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Space Applications)
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19 pages, 3172 KiB  
Article
SpaceWire-to-UWB Wireless Interface Units for Intra-spacecraft Communication Links
by Rares-Calin Buta, Martin Drobczyk, Thomas Firchau, Andre Luebken, Tudor Petru Palade, Andra Pastrav and Emanuel Puschita
Sensors 2023, 23(3), 1363; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s23031363 - 26 Jan 2023
Viewed by 1934
Abstract
In the context of the Eu:CROPIS mission requirements, this paper aims to test and validate an intra-spacecraft wireless transmission carried between two SpW-to-UWB Wireless Interface Units (WIUs). The WIUs are designed to replace the on-board SpaceWire (SpW) connections of a spacecraft network. The [...] Read more.
In the context of the Eu:CROPIS mission requirements, this paper aims to test and validate an intra-spacecraft wireless transmission carried between two SpW-to-UWB Wireless Interface Units (WIUs). The WIUs are designed to replace the on-board SpaceWire (SpW) connections of a spacecraft network. The novelty of this solution resides in prototyping and testing proprietary TRL6 WIUs for the implementation of both PDHU and CDHU units, which constitute a spacecraft network. The validation test scenarios employed in this paper were designed under the Eu:CROPIS mission system requirements as defined by the WiSAT-3 European Space Agency (ESA)-funded project. The SpW-to-UWB WIUs run a custom-built ISA100 over an IEEE 802.15.4 UWB PHY layer communication stack. The WIUs are evaluated based on four mission-specific performance test scenarios: (1) the link setup test, (2) the end-to-end delay test, (3) the maximum data rate test and (4) the housekeeping test. The validation test scenarios of the WIUs are carried out with the use of STAR-Dundee SpW-capable equipment. The test results demonstrate the reliability of the deployed SpW-to-UWB WIUs devices for UWB wireless communications carried out within a space shuttle. The SpW data were successfully transmitted across the intra-spacecraft wireless network in all experimental tests. The technology can be considered to be at the maturity level TRL6 (functionality demonstrated in relevant environment) for LEO missions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Space Applications)
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17 pages, 1613 KiB  
Article
Static Attitude Determination Using Convolutional Neural Networks
by Guilherme Henrique dos Santos, Laio Oriel Seman, Eduardo Augusto Bezerra, Valderi Reis Quietinho Leithardt, André Sales Mendes and Stéfano Frizzo Stefenon
Sensors 2021, 21(19), 6419; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21196419 - 26 Sep 2021
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2130
Abstract
The need to estimate the orientation between frames of reference is crucial in spacecraft navigation. Robust algorithms for this type of problem have been built by following algebraic approaches, but data-driven solutions are becoming more appealing due to their stochastic nature. Hence, an [...] Read more.
The need to estimate the orientation between frames of reference is crucial in spacecraft navigation. Robust algorithms for this type of problem have been built by following algebraic approaches, but data-driven solutions are becoming more appealing due to their stochastic nature. Hence, an approach based on convolutional neural networks in order to deal with measurement uncertainty in static attitude determination problems is proposed in this paper. PointNet models were trained with different datasets containing different numbers of observation vectors that were used to build attitude profile matrices, which were the inputs of the system. The uncertainty of measurements in the test scenarios was taken into consideration when choosing the best model. The proposed model, which used convolutional neural networks, proved to be less sensitive to higher noise than traditional algorithms, such as singular value decomposition (SVD), the q-method, the quaternion estimator (QUEST), and the second estimator of the optimal quaternion (ESOQ2). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Space Applications)
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24 pages, 840 KiB  
Article
Novel High Accuracy Resolver Topology for Space Applications
by Jon Santiso-Zelaia, Gaizka Ugalde, Fernando Garramiola, Ion Iturbe and Izaskun Sarasola
Sensors 2021, 21(14), 4711; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s21144711 - 09 Jul 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2978
Abstract
In recent years, the space industry has experienced a significant change mainly due to the incursion of private companies, which has shaken up the sector. This new situation allows for a reduction regarding the reliability of conventional instrumentation for space while reducing the [...] Read more.
In recent years, the space industry has experienced a significant change mainly due to the incursion of private companies, which has shaken up the sector. This new situation allows for a reduction regarding the reliability of conventional instrumentation for space while reducing the development time and manufacturing volume. Consequently, even though it has been typical to use equipment that was previously tested in space, this could be the right moment to introduce new technologies due to the previously mentioned reasons. One of the interesting technologies with great potential is the rotary sensor in applications with motors. Historically, the resistive potentiometer has been the most used due to its simplicity and robustness; however, it has several drawbacks. Due to this, the aim of this paper is to identify an interesting rotary sensor. Hence, in this article, different sensor types are studied. Then, we review the literature regarding resolvers in order to find the best topology. We designed and compared different single speed absolute position resolvers to find the ones that offered the best results. In this process, a novel resolver topology was designed that improved on the performances of any other studied topology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Space Applications)
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