Micromachines (Feb 2023)

Demonstration of a Fizeau Directly-Imaging Sparse-Aperture Telescope with Pointing and Tracking Capabilities

  • Liangzhu Yuan,
  • Jianliang Shi,
  • Yongmei Huang,
  • Jinying Li,
  • Piao Wen,
  • Haotong Ma,
  • Yang Li,
  • Huayang Xia,
  • Qiong Tu,
  • Rongqi Ma

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/mi14030569
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 3
p. 569

Abstract

Read online

At present, the majority of sparse-aperture telescopes (SATs) are unable to observe moving targets. In this paper, we describe the construction of and present the results obtained using a Fizeau directly-imaging sparse-aperture telescope (FDISAT) that permits pointing and the tracking of moving targets. The telescope comprises three sub-apertures, each of which is equipped with a Risley prism system that permits a maximum tracking range of 5° and has independent boresight adjustment capability. On targets in various positions, experiments with pointing and tracking are conducted. The maximum root-mean-square error (RMSE) of pointing in the sub-apertures was found to be 8.22 arcsec. When considering a target moving at 0.01°/s for approximately 320 s, the maximum RMSE of tracking in the sub-apertures was found to be 4.23 arcsec. The images obtained from the focal plane detector exhibit clear interference fringes while tracking. The experimental results demonstrate that the system can effectively track moving targets, providing a method for SAT observation of moving targets.

Keywords