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Completed TRL 2 (started at 2, targeting 3)
Constellations of CubeSat radiometers offer enormous potential for Earth and Space observations as low-cost platforms with significant advantages over single, large and expensive monolithic systems such as real-time measurements with large coverage, resiliency of a distributed observation system, and graceful degradation with low-cost replenishment. On the other hand, to obtain stable and accurate calibration of individual sensors in the constellation, as well as precise calibration of the entire constellation to ensure uniform, consistent, and spatiotemporally continuous measurements are some of the main challenges in utilizing such constellations. To address these challenges, the proposed research will develop a framework called Adaptive Calibration of CUbesat Radiometer Constellations (ACCURACy) to calibrate CubeSat radiometer constellations in real-time via a novel approach by considering constellations as single systems to calibrate in their entirety.
The future of Remote Sensing is constellations of CubeSats due to their low cost, small size, and reduced power requirements, as well as their ability to provide frequent-revisit, real-time, and consistent observations with large coverage. This project will address the challenges in CubeSat radiometer calibration due to their susceptibility to ambient conditions, and provide constellation-level consistent calibration with reduced and quantifiable errors and uncertainties for traceable measurements. The developed ACCURACy modules can also be utilized in single radiometer calibration, or characterization and calibration of other types of distributed sensors.
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