Kilometer-level laser reflective tomography experiment and debris barycenter estimation

Abstract

Removal of the numerous centimeter-level space debris in low Earth orbit by using high-power lasers is always a hot topic of international academic research. Specifically, the precise positioning of space debris and high-precision measurement of barycenter range of debris are the key points and worldwide problems that need to be promptly solved. As a new remote high-resolution imaging method, laser reflective tomography is an effective approach to detecting the dark targets in remote space with its imaging resolution independent of the detection range. Hence, a centimeter-level space debris barycenter model is established according to the principle of laser reflective tomography in order to analyze the relative movement of debris and detector. On this basis, an approach to estimating the barycenter range of centimeter-level space debris is proposed to carry out the experimental verification of 1km detection range laser reflective tomography. The experimental results show that this method can improve the accuracy of barycenter detection from 1.50 cm to 0.34 cm, which is an effective measure for realizing high-precision measurement of barycenter ranges of centimeter-level space debris. Furthermore, this study achieves a breakthrough in kilometer-level laser reflective tomography experiments and theory of validation, and the kilometer-level laser reflective tomography has a great application prospect and technical potential.