Related papers: MICROSCOPE instrument in-flight characterization
Inertial sensors relying on atom interferometry offer a breakthrough advance in a variety of applications, such as inertial navigation, gravimetry or ground- and space-based tests of fundamental physics. These instruments require a quiet…
Magneto-optical sensors including spin noise spectroscopies and magneto-optical Kerr effect microscopies are now ubiquitous tools for materials characterization that can provide new understanding of spin dynamics, hyperfine interactions,…
The Gravity Advanced Package is an instrument composed of an electrostatic accelerometer called MicroSTAR and a rotating platform called Bias Rejection System. It aims at measuring with no bias the non-gravitational acceleration of a…
Small ions are part of the atmospheric aerosol spectrum, and study of ion-aerosol interactions is fundamental in atmospheric physics. Air ion physics and instrumentation are reviewed, including the historical context. A miniaturised Gerdien…
We present our the construction of an atom interferometer for inertial sensing in microgravity, as part of the I.C.E. (\textit{Interf\'{e}rom\'{e}trie Coh\'{e}rente pour l'Espace}) collaboration. On-board laser systems have been developed…
Bird strikes present a huge risk for aircraft, especially since traditional airport bird surveillance is mainly dependent on inefficient human observation. Computer vision based technology has been proposed to automatically detect birds,…
The capability of maintaining two satellites in precise relative position, stable in a celestial coordinate system, would enable major advances in a number of scientific disciplines and with a variety of types of instrumentation. The common…
This paper presents MicroRoboScope, a portable, compact, and versatile microrobotic experimentation platform designed for real-time, closed-loop control of both magnetic and acoustic microrobots. The system integrates an embedded computer,…
Flying Gyroscopes are fascinating flight objects, which, due to gyroscopic stabilization, can achieve surprisingly long flight distances when thrown with rapid spin. The most common example hereby is a traditional Frisbee disc. This paper…
In this contribution to PSAS'2010 we report on recent progress on an experiment aimed at measuring small optical directional anisotropies by frequency metrology in a high finesse ring cavity. We focus on our first experimental goal, the…
Here follows a preliminary report on the construction of fake millimeter and sub-millimeter skies, as observed by virtual instruments, e.g. the COBRA/SAMBA mission, using theoretical modeling and data extrapolations. Our goal is to create…
A high sensitivity force sensor based on dielectric microspheres in vacuum, optically trapped by a single, upward-propagating laser beam, is described. Off-axis parabolic mirrors are used both to focus the 1064~nm trapping beam and to…
We describe a space-borne, multi-band, multi-beam polarimeter aiming at a precise and accurate measurement of the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The instrument is optimized to be compatible with the strict budget…
The navigation systems of autonomous aircraft rely on the readings provided by a suite of onboard sensors to estimate the aircraft state. In the case of fixed wing vehicles, the sensor suite is composed by triads of accelerometers,…
With the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA working to return humans to the moon and onwards to Mars, it has never been more important to study the impact of altered gravity conditions on biological organisms. These include astronauts but…
The Polarized Instrument for Long-wavelength Observation of the Tenuous interstellar medium (PILOT) is a balloon-borne experiment aiming at measuring the polarized emission of thermal dust at a wavelength of 240 mm (1.2 THz). A first PILOT…
The first six months of flight data from the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS) were used to test MIPS reduction algorithms based on extensive preflight laboratory data and modeling. The underlying approach for the preflight…
In order to investigate the speed of gravitational signals travelling in air or through a different medium two experiments were designed. One of the experiments contains 2 masses rotating at very high speed and in the other experiment a…
In the past few years, there has been a resurgence in studies towards space-based optical/infrared interferometry, particularly with the vision to use the technique to discover and characterise temperate Earth-like exoplanets around solar…
Precision measurements are reported of the cross-spectrum of rotationally-induced differential position displacements in a pair of colocated 39 m long, high power Michelson interferometers. One arm of each interferometer is bent…