Radiometric sensitivity and resolution of synthetic tracking imaging for orbital debris monitoring

Hasan Bahcivan; David J. Brady; Gordon C. Hageman

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arXiv · 2211.09789

Radiometric sensitivity and resolution of synthetic tracking imaging for orbital debris monitoring

Hasan Bahcivan·David J. Brady·Gordon C. Hageman

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Abstract

We consider sampling and detection strategies for solar illuminated space debris. We argue that the lowest detectable debris cross section may be reduced by 10-100x by analysis of stacks of image frames collected at high rates rather than single frame data. In particular, instead of a pixel as a spatial region, the analysis is based on a "phase-space-pixel" which corresponds to an angular velocity and space region and whose intensity is computed by a weighted stacking of spatial pixels corresponding to a test debris trajectory within a wide camera field-of-view (FOV). To isolate debris signals from background, the exposure time is set to match the time it takes a debris to transit through the instantaneous field of view. Debris signatures are detected by multiscale X-ray processing of the data cube. Radiometric analysis of line integrals shows that sub-cm objects in Low Earth Orbit can be detected and assigned full orbital parameters by this approach.

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Hasan Bahcivan, David J. Brady, Gordon C. Hageman. 2022-11-17. Radiometric sensitivity and resolution of synthetic tracking imaging for orbital debris monitoring. https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.09789

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