Investigation of spacecraft cluster autonomy through an acoustic imaging interferometric testbed

Abstract

The development and use of a novel testbed architecture is presented. Separated spacecraft interferometers have been proposed for applications in sparse aperture radar or astronomical observations. Modeled after these systems, an integrated hardware and software interferometry testbed is developed. Utilizing acoustic sources and sensors as a simplified analog to radio or optical systems, the Acoustic Imaging Testbed's simplest function is that of a Michelson interferometer. Robot arms control the motion of microphones. Through successive measurements an acoustic image can be formed. On top of this functionality, a layered software architecture is developed. This software creates a virtual environment that mimics the command, control and communications functions appropriate to a space interferometer. Autonomous spacecraft agents interact within this environment as the logical equivalent of distributed satellites. Optimal imaging configurations are validated. A scalable approach to cluster autonomy is discussed.