Micro-vibration issues in integrated design of high resolution optical remote sensing satellites

Abstract

With the development of remote sensing satellite technologies, and the pressing need for high resolution, high agility and low costs for remote sensing satellites, integrated design of platform and payload has been a growing tendency, which could remarkably reduce costs, volume and mass. However, compared to traditional designs, remote sensors in the integrated design are much closer to vibration sources, implying that the micro-vibration environment of remote sensors becomes even worse. Although the micro-vibration is so small that its influence to structure is negligible, it could result in considerable reduction of image quality of high resolution remote sensors. Micro-vibration has become a critical factor for high resolution image quality especially in the integrated satellites. In this article, several key solutions are proposed to mitigate the influence of micro-vibration on image quality. First, the optimization of the structure and configuration is carried out to suppress the micro-vibration transmitted to sensitive payloads. The propagation process of attenuation and amplification along vibration pathways is analysed so that the structure and configuration of satellites can be optimized, making full use of the structure to accelerate attenuation of micro-vibration. Both test and simulation show that the optimization of structure and configuration with this method is quite effective. Second, the isolator is employed to suppress the micro-vibration. The isolator is selected in system view in this article, considering the flexibility of structures, avoiding coupling with the natural frequency of the spacecraft structure. In order to improve the isolation performance, the axial, radical stiffness and damping coefficient of the isolator are optimized in system level. Simulations show that the isolator with proposed parameter is effective for micro-vibration suppression. Finally, some other issues about micro-vibration in integrated design are identified and the corresponding solutions are proposed. With the previous methods, the micro-vibration transmitted to high resolution remote sensors has been mitigated sharply and the dynamic environment of remote sensors has been improved significantly.