Tracking scheme of airborne star tracker based on event-triggered sliding mode control with known input delay.

The airborne star tracker is crucial in aircraft navigation systems, with its tracking performance directly impacting navigation accuracy. Under airborne conditions, the performance of its tracking control will be compromised by various disturbances. Moreover, the limitation in computational resources is another issue that must be addressed. Assuming that the existing studies on this application did not consider these two aspects of the effects simultaneously, this study proposes a novel event-triggered sliding mode control (ET-SMC) scheme considering the known input time delay for star tracking control to address these two issues. First, an extended state observer (ESO) is presented to estimate the disturbance generated by airborne conditions. Second, the ET-SMC scheme further enhances the robustness and improves resource utilization, thus easing the processor burden. An ET mechanism related to the disturbance estimation triggering error in the ESO is introduced to ensure that the system input is only updated when necessary. A novel, easy-to-implement sliding gain is also proposed to increase system adaptability and reduce inherent chattering. The reachability of the sliding surface and the existence of a practical sliding mode of the system are ensured based on the Lyapunov theory. The ultimate upper bound of system states considering the known input time delay is also proven, thereby confirming the stability of the proposed design. The exclusion of Zeno behavior validates the feasibility of the proposed ESO-based ET-SMC. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified using comparative simulations and target-tracking experiments. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method excels in robustness, disturbance attenuation, high tracking accuracy, and computational resource efficiency. These enhancements are anticipated to result in a more stable tracking performance for the star tracker, thereby contributing to precise aircraft navigation.

An Electromagnetic-Driven Microshutter Array in a Field-of-View Gated Image System for All-Time Star Sensors.

Aiming at the application requirements of a field of view (FOV) gated imaging system for all-time star sensors, a key device of a microshutter array with large unit size, high duty cycle, and fast response speed based on the electromagnetic actuation is designed. The proposed microshutter array adopts the principle that the current-carrying coil is subjected to the magnetic force in the magnetic field. The coil element is deflected by the loading current and acts as a light barrier in realizing the optical switch function. The effects of the coil element parameters on the magnetic force torque, torsion beam resistance torque, and switch response time are analyzed, and the structural parameters of the coil element are determined. A sample of the proposed microshutter array based on the electromagnetic actuation with a 4-mm period and a 2.8-mm aperture is fabricated and tested. The test results demonstrate the good switching function of the proposed microshutter array and show that the switch response time of the microshutter element is approximately 2.5 ms. This proposed microshutter array is used to gate an instantaneous small FOV to suppress the sky's background radiation and make a FOV-gated imaging system realize the multi-stars detection by switching the gated FOV rapidly. This will solve the problem that only one star can be detected within the FOV by a traditional all-time star tracker and promote the all-time star sensor to realize star pattern recognition and autonomous astronomical navigation in the daytime.

Optical imaging system for an all-time star sensor based on field of view gated technology.

The wide field of view (FOV) of traditional star sensor optical systems restricts the ability to suppress atmospheric background. An optical imaging system for an all-time star sensor based on FOV gated technology is proposed. In this system, a wide FOV telescope is used to observe a large sky area containing multiple stars. A microlens and microshutter array is employed to subdivide the wide FOV and gate a narrow FOV to suppress atmospheric background radiation. Assisted by a common imaging lens, each set of microlens and microshutter elements corresponds to a FOV gated imaging channel. With the rapid switching of gated FOV, multiple stellar images are obtained on a common detection during daytime. As an example, a FOV gated optical imaging system with 0.4° gated FOV and 61 imaging channels is designed. In addition, a simplified prototype is developed, and a preliminary experiment of FOV gated imaging is performed near the ground. The results verify the capability of multiple stellar detections during daytime. The proposed optical imaging system has a strong capability of suppressing atmospheric background radiation and provides sufficient FOV gated imaging channels to enhance the probability of detecting multiple stars. It provides an effective technical way to develop all-time star sensors based on star pattern recognition and enables a completely autonomous attitude determination possible for platforms inside the atmosphere during daytime.

ISSM-ELM - a guide star selection for a small-FOV star sensor based on the improved SSM and extreme learning machine.

The construction of a guide star catalog is crucial for a star sensor to achieve accurate star map recognition and attitude determination. At present, the methods of a guide star catalog for a large field of view (FOV) star sensor have been relatively mature. However, for a small-FOV star sensor, there are still certain problems, such as a large storage capacity of a guide star catalog, uneven distribution of stars, and easy occurrence of voids. To address these problems, we propose a construction method of a small-FOV star sensor guide star catalog based on the combination of the improved spherical spiral method (ISSM) and extreme learning machine (ELM) named the ISSM-ELM. First, a spiral reference point is used as an optical axis pointing of the star sensor, and the guide stars are preliminarily screened based on the star-diagonal distance between the star and the reference point, and the star-density and magnitude characteristics of the guide star. Then the ELM is used to supplement the guide star empty sky area to construct an integrity guide star catalog. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can reduce the storage capacity of the guide star catalog, and improve its uniformity, integrity, and average brightness.

Star Sensor Denoising Algorithm Based on Edge Protection.

Single-pixel noise commonly appearing in a star sensor can cause an unexpected error in centroid extraction. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a star image denoising algorithm, named Improved Gaussian Side Window Filtering (IGSWF). Firstly, the IGSWF algorithm uses four special triangular Gaussian subtemplates for edge protection. Secondly, it exploits a reconstruction function based on the characteristic of stars and noise. The proposed IGSWF algorithm was successfully verified through simulations and evaluated in a star sensor. The experimental results indicated that the IGSWF algorithm performed better in preserving the shape of stars and eliminating the single-pixel noise and the centroid estimation error (CEE) value after using the IGSWF algorithm was eight times smaller than the original value, six times smaller than that after traditional window filtering, and three times smaller than that after the side window filtering.

Heavy metal poisoning resistance of a Co-modified 3Mn10Fe/Ni low-temperature SCR deNOx catalyst.

Heavy metals have a great influence on the deNOx efficiency of catalysts. The 3Mn10Fe/Ni catalyst that used nickel foam (Ni) as the carrier, Mn and Fe as the active components, and Co as a trace auxiliary was prepared using an impregnation method. The catalysts poisoned by Pb or Zn and Co-modified catalysts with Pb or Zn poisoning were studied. The addition of Pb or Zn significantly decreases the deNOx activity of the 3Mn10Fe/Ni catalyst due to the decrease in the content of high-valence metal elements such as Fe3+ and Mn4+, lattice oxygen concentration, reduction performance, acidity, and the number of acid sites. However, after Co modification, the deNOx activity of the poisoned catalysts can be improved effectively because the strong interaction between Pb or Zn and lattice oxygen is weakened, and the contents of lattice oxygen, high valence metal elements, reduction ability, and the number of acid sites increase.

Experimental Study of the Influences of Temperature on the Properties of Particles in a Gasifier during Coal-Water Slurry Gasification.

Studies were made on the influence of temperature and oxygen to carbon ratio (the O/C ratio) on the properties of particles during water coal slurry gasification by taking a new-type coal-water slurry gasifier as the thermal experiment platform, coal-water slurry as a gasification material, and oxygen as the oxidant. The results show that the higher the gasification temperature, the more spherical particles are generated, the higher the content of Na, Fe, and S on the particle surface, and the greater the mass percentage of fine particles. With increase in the O/C ratio, the production of fine particles also increases, while the carbon content of the particles decreases. When the O/C ratio is 1.1, fine particles mainly exist in the form of aggregates; the O/C ratio has little influence on the contents of the particle surface, such as Na, Al, Si, Fe, and S. The effect of the O/C ratio on particle size distribution is most obvious when the ratio is 1: the fine particles are the most prevalent and the coarse particles are the fewest. When the ratio is 1.1, the amount of coarse particles is the largest and the amount of fine particle aggregates is also greater. When the ratio is 0.9, the particle size distribution is intermediate to the two cases.

A Convenient Calibration Method for LRF-Camera Combination Systems Based on a Checkerboard.

In this paper, a simple and easy high-precision calibration method is proposed for the LRF-camera combined measurement system which is widely used at present. This method can be applied not only to mainstream 2D and 3D LRF-cameras, but also to calibrate newly developed 1D LRF-camera combined systems. It only needs a calibration board to record at least three sets of data. First, the camera parameters and distortion coefficients are decoupled by the distortion center. Then, the spatial coordinates of laser spots are solved using line and plane constraints, and the estimation of LRF-camera extrinsic parameters is realized. In addition, we establish a cost function for optimizing the system. Finally, the calibration accuracy and characteristics of the method are analyzed through simulation experiments, and the validity of the method is verified through the calibration of a real system.

Polarization-modulated three-dimensional imaging using a large-aperture electro-optic modulator.

To implement high-resolution and low-light sensitive three-dimensional (3D) imaging for long-range applications while simplifying data collection and reducing collection time, a polarization-modulated 3D imaging structure, using a large-aperture electro-optic modulator (EOM) and electron-multiplying CCD (EMCCD), is proposed in this paper. As the EMCCD camera itself has no ability of time resolution and high-speed gating due to the time integration mechanism, large-aperture EOMs are used to provide time resolution and high-speed shutter simultaneously for the EMCCD cameras to obtain the polarization-modulated images from which a 3D image can be reconstructed. A narrow field of view was designed to match the divergence of laser beam for long-range imaging, and therefore through the receiver, the incident angle on the EOM would still be limited to within a small angle, which would not degrade the modulation performance significantly during electro-optic modulation. Ultimately, we found that the polarization-modulated 3D imaging lidar showed very promising performance on time-resolved imaging in a field of view of 0.9 mrad.

Efficient subpixel registration for polarization-modulated 3D imaging.

To implement real-time 3D reconstruction and displaying for polarization-modulated 3D imaging lidar system, an efficient subpixel registration based on maximum principal component analysis (MPCA) is proposed in this paper. With which only the maximum principal component is estimated to identify non-integer translations in spatial domain while other principal components affected by noise are ignored. Consequently, robustness and stability of the subpixel registration is implemented in presence of noise, while computational complexity is reduced and memory size is saved simultaneously, especially when the image size is large. Both simulated and real polarization-modulated images are used to verify the proposed method. Simulation results show that 0.01 pixels of the registration accuracy are implemented; meanwhile, experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively reconstruct the depth image in real world application.

Scale Estimation and Correction of the Monocular Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) Based on Fusion of 1D Laser Range Finder and Vision Data.

This article presents a new sensor fusion method for visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) through integration of a monocular camera and a 1D-laser range finder. Such as a fusion method provides the scale estimation and drift correction and it is not limited by volume, e.g., the stereo camera is constrained by the baseline and overcomes the limited depth range problem associated with SLAM for RGBD cameras. We first present the analytical feasibility for estimating the absolute scale through the fusion of 1D distance information and image information. Next, the analytical derivation of the laser-vision fusion is described in detail based on the local dense reconstruction of the image sequences. We also correct the scale drift of the monocular SLAM using the laser distance information which is independent of the drift error. Finally, application of this approach to both indoor and outdoor scenes is verified by the Technical University of Munich dataset of RGBD and self-collected data. We compare the effects of the scale estimation and drift correction of the proposed method with the SLAM for a monocular camera and a RGBD camera.

Electro-optic modulation methods in range-gated active imaging.

A time-resolved imaging method based on electro-optic modulation is proposed in this paper. To implement range resolution, two kinds of polarization-modulated methods are designed, and high spatial and range resolution can be achieved by the active imaging system. In the system, with polarization beam splitting the incident light is split into two parts, one of which is modulated with cos(2) function and the other is modulated with sin(2) function. Afterward, a depth map can be obtained from two simultaneously received images by dual electron multiplying charge-coupled devices. Furthermore, an intensity image can also be obtained from the two images. Comparisons of the two polarization-modulated methods indicate that range accuracy will be promoted when the polarized light is modulated before beam splitting.

Low-pass parabolic FFT filter for airborne and satellite lidar signal processing.

In order to reduce random errors of the lidar signal inversion, a low-pass parabolic fast Fourier transform filter (PFFTF) was introduced for noise elimination. A compact airborne Raman lidar system was studied, which applied PFFTF to process lidar signals. Mathematics and simulations of PFFTF along with low pass filters, sliding mean filter (SMF), median filter (MF), empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and wavelet transform (WT) were studied, and the practical engineering value of PFFTF for lidar signal processing has been verified. The method has been tested on real lidar signal from Wyoming Cloud Lidar (WCL). Results show that PFFTF has advantages over the other methods. It keeps the high frequency components well and reduces much of the random noise simultaneously for lidar signal processing.

Non-iterative method for camera calibration.

This paper presents a new and effective technique to calibrate a camera without nonlinear iteration optimization. To this end, the centre-of-distortion is accurately estimated firstly. Based on the radial distortion division model, point correspondences between model plane and its image were used to compute the homography and distortion coefficients afterwards. Once the homographies of calibration images are obtained, the camera intrinsic parameters are solved analytically. All the solution techniques applied in this calibration process are non-iterative that do not need any initial guess, with no risk of local minima. Moreover, estimation of the distortion coefficients and intrinsic parameters could be successfully decoupled, yielding the more stable and reliable result. Both simulative and real experiments have been carried out to show that the proposed method is reliable and effective. Without nonlinear iteration optimization, the proposed method is computationally efficient and can be applied to real-time online calibration.

Volcanic history of the Imbrium basin: A close-up view from the lunar rover Yutu.

We report the surface exploration by the lunar rover Yutu that landed on the young lava flow in the northeastern part of the Mare Imbrium, which is the largest basin on the nearside of the Moon and is filled with several basalt units estimated to date from 3.5 to 2.0 Ga. The onboard lunar penetrating radar conducted a 114-m-long profile, which measured a thickness of ∼5 m of the lunar regolith layer and detected three underlying basalt units at depths of 195, 215, and 345 m. The radar measurements suggest underestimation of the global lunar regolith thickness by other methods and reveal a vast volume of the last volcano eruption. The in situ spectral reflectance and elemental analysis of the lunar soil at the landing site suggest that the young basalt could be derived from an ilmenite-rich mantle reservoir and then assimilated by 10-20% of the last residual melt of the lunar magma ocean.