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ALR—a laser altimeter for the first Brazilian deep space mission. Modeling and simulation of the instrument and its operation

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Abstract

Among the scientific instruments that will fly on the upcoming mission ASTER, the first Brazilian deep space mission, the laser altimeter will play an important role in the surveys regarding shapes, topographies and masses of the asteroids of the triple system. The development of the instrument in partnership among universities (UNICAMP, UFABC) and companies of the Brazilian aerospace sector is in progress. This paper describes and presents the set of studies that were conducted aiming at the creation of software to embark on the control and signal processing unit of the instrument, with respect to the modeling and simulation of its operation and regarding the emission of laser pulses along with the detection and processing of return pulses. As the main result, a package of computer programs was created to simulate the operation of a pulsed laser altimeter with principle of operation based on the measurement of the pulse time of flight. The simulator software was named ALR_Sim. The results obtained with the ALR_Sim helped to better understand some key features and parameters of the operation of the future instrument, such as the sampling time of the detected signal and the definition of the type of detector suitable for the expected intensity of the return signal. The simulator software was successfully tested with respect to the most common expected situations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Federal do ABC, Santo André, SP, Brazil

    Antonio G. V. de Brum, A. Hetem Jr & A. P. Rodrigues

  2. Universidade Estadual de Campinas/IFGW, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    F. C. da Cruz

Authors
  1. Antonio G. V. de Brum
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  2. F. C. da Cruz
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  3. A. Hetem Jr
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  4. A. P. Rodrigues
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Antonio G. V. de Brum.

Additional information

Communicated by Elbert Macau and Cristiano Fiorilo.

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de Brum, A.G.V., da Cruz, F.C., Hetem, A. et al. ALR—a laser altimeter for the first Brazilian deep space mission. Modeling and simulation of the instrument and its operation. Comp. Appl. Math. 34, 557–569 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40314-014-0145-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40314-014-0145-8

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