We describe the development and implementation of a light-weight, fully autonomous 2-axis pointing and stabilization system designed for balloon-borne astronomical payloads. The system is developed using off-the-shelf components such as Arduino Uno controller, HMC 5883L magnetometer, MPU-9150 Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and iWave GPS receiver unit. It is a compact and rugged system which can also be used to take images/video in a moving vehicle, or in areal photography. The system performance is evaluated from the ground, as well as in conditions simulated to imitate the actual flight by using a tethered launch.
@article{arxiv.1609.00184,
title = {Pointing System for the Balloon-Borne Astronomical Payloads},
author = {K. Nirmal and A. G. Sreejith and Joice Mathew and Mayuresh Sarpotdar and Ambily Suresh and Ajin Prakash and Margarita Safonova and Jayant Murthy},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.00184},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
25 pages, 12 figures, Accepted in Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems