VITSAT-1 PAYLOAD REPORT.

Author: B.varun reddy 25/08/10, VIT University, Tamilnadu, INDIA.

Description:
VITSAT-1 is the picosatellite project taken up by the undergraduates of VIT University, India. The project is in the design phase and this report describes what goals the payload group is working towards.

CONTENTS: Introduction VITSAT-1 payload a camera unit.................... Goals Requirements.. Camera solution.. Future prospects

INTRODUCTION:
In general, institutions that have entered the program with little satellite development experience are encouraged to design to a simple mission that transmits basic telemetry such as current, voltage, and health of the satellite. As institutions gain experience, complex missions and payloads can be integrated into the next satellite revision. These payloads can vary from science experiments, technology demonstration, or concept mission. VITSAT-I being the first cubesat-a picosatellite ,of our university, focus was mainly on educational objectives. This project makes it possible for students to gain hands on experience with a real satellite project and to promote space engineering to the next generations of the students. The CubeSat Project was developed by California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and Stanford University's Space Systems Development Lab. The CubeSat program creates launch opportunities for universities previously unable to access space. A CubeSat is a 10 cm cube with a mass of up to 1 kg .Choosing the payload for a cubesat involves huge thought process and analysis. Limitations on size, weight and power consumption restrains the number of choices available.

VITSAT-1 payload a camera unit:

Camera has been chosen as the payload for VITSAT-1, after doing a significant research on various cubesat payloads. The factors that propelled us to choose a camera are: The advancement and miniaturization in the area of image sensors. Wide varieties of camera modules. Compatibility with other subsystems of the cubesat. Cost.

GOALS:
The goals of our payload group can be classified as - Short term & - Long term. Short term goals: To choose the best camera COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) solution for the mission of taking the pictures of the earth from space. Implementing the whole payload subsystem for VITSAT-1 prototype. Long term goals: To incorporate advanced imaging and image processing techniques, on a cubesat. To investigate the possibilities of integrating camera module with other systems for obtaining data of scientific importance.This report focuses on detailed description of the short term goals.

REQUIREMENTS:
To choose a commercial camera unit for a space mission is a tedious task. It is obvious that no commercial manufacturer in this world would design a camera unit to meet the harsh conditions posed in space. The construction of a satellite camera has many pitfalls, and many tradeoffs have to be made. Among the difficulties are:
High power density of sunlight Extremely low temperature of space High radiation intensities Directional stability Power consumption low weight

Apart from having small size, weight and power consumption the camera unit should have 1. Low resolution 2. Adjustable gain and exposure time 3. Space grade lens optic Resolution is the measure of quality of an image. Images with high resolution give more information on the image subject. Unfortunately, A high resolution camera cannot be incorporated in a cubesat, due to the limitations posed by other subsystems. Increasing the number of pixels in a camera implies increase in its power consumption and image size. Large image size demands huge memory and processing times, if image processing techniques are incorporated. Low transmission rate of the image data from the cubesat. Transmission rate of the VITSAT-1 is 9600 bps, decided by our COMMS subsystem. As our cubesat would orbit the earth in LEO with a period of ~97 mins and the beamwidth of transmitter antenna, gives a communication window for 10 minutes, three times a day for the ground station. For better understanding of this, refer to the orbit analysis of our cubesat.

So, maximum data that can be transmitted for 10 mins is 9600x10x60 = 5760000 bits = 720 Kilobytes. Image with VGA resolution (640x480) would have a raw image size of 640x480x24 = 921.6 Kilobytes for color image 640x480x8 = 307.2 Kilobytes for grey scale image Color image size of QVGA resolution (320x240) = 320x240x24 = 230.4 Kilobytes From the above analysis we can infer that the following camera units will fit to our requirements. A color camera with QVGA resolution A black and white camera with VGA resolution A color camera with VGA resolution and onboard image compression technique Hence our search is limited to VGA camera modules. As the main market for commercial miniature VGA camera modules are mobile phones and webcams, they are designed to work in indoor and outdoor luminous conditions that are far different from the space conditions. Hence the gain, exposure and other imaging parameters should be adjustable. Lens optics is vital for capturing the image accurately. The lens optics incorporated in commercial camera modules is not space feasible, which narrows our options to mount a space grade lens on the image sensor or providing protection to the commercial lens. Further,the camera module should be operable at a wide range of temperatures ( -40 to +80 Deg C). most of the COTS modules have an operable temperature range of 0 to 40 degrees Centigrade. This is a stressful job to be accomplished by thermal management team.

CAMERA SOLUTION:
After an intense search based on the requirements, our choice was minimized to two camera modules 1. C328R JPEG camera module. 2. C3038 color camera module. A camera module consists of an image sensor and its peripherals on chip with control and data lines, with a lens mount. The parameters of the image sensor are either predefined, non changeable, or can be user defined. To integrate a camera module with their individual components is out of our scope. This was one of the strong reasons which propelled us to find a finished product.

C328R JPEG camera module:

The C328R is VGA camera module performs as a JPEG compressed still camera and can be attached to a wireless or PDA host.Users can send out a snapshot command from the host in order to capture a full resolution single-frame still picture. The picture is then compressed by the JPEG engine and transferred to the host through serial port.

Features Small in size, 20x28mm VGA resolution, down sample to QVGA or CIF 3.3V operation Low power consumption 60mA User friendly commands to control the module UART interface of up to 115.2Kbps Auto detect baud rate and make connection to the host Power saving mode Various lens options

Pin Description This camera module has four pins for interfacing
1.VCC- Power 3.3VDC 2.TxD -Data Transmit (3.3V) 3.RxD- Data Receive (3.3V) 4.GND- Power Ground

Connector specification: 2mm pitch, 4pin single row. Electrical Specification VDD = 3.3V+10%, TA = 0 to 25 degree Centigrade.
Symbol VDD Io Parameter DC supply voltage Normal Operation Current Suspend Current High level input voltage Low level input voltage Condition 3.0 Operating Min Typ 3.3 Max 3.6 60 Unit V mA

Is VIH

Suspend TTL 2.0

100

uA V

VIL

TTL

0.8

System Configuration 1.Camera Sensor The C328R module uses OmniVision VGA color digital CameraChips with an 8-bit YcbCr interface. 2.OV528 Serial Bridge The OV528 Serial Bridge is a JPEG CODEC embedded controller chip that can compress and transfer image data from CameraChips to external device. The camera interface synchronizes with input video data and performs down sampling, clamping and windowing functions with desired resolution, as well as color conversion that is requested by the user through serial bus host commands. The JPEG CODEC can achieve higher compression ratio and better image quality for various image resolutions. 3.Program EEPROM A serial type program memory is built-in for C328R to provide a set of userfriendly command interfacing to external host.

SHORTCOMINGS:
Though C328R looks as an ideal choice for our mission on paper, it should pass several hurdles before finalising it as our payload. Space radiation effects on the module have to be tested. Gain and exposure parameters of the image sensor chip should be modified to meet the space conditions,by the manufacturer. Nevertheless this is an ideal choice for the first-touch experience with camera modules. This has been finalised as the camera module for VITSAT1 prototype, which is a complete, functional engineering model to demonstrate our cubesat.

C3038 COLOR SENSOR MODULE:

The C3038 is a 1/4 color sensor module with digital output. It uses OmniVisions CMOS image sensor OV6630. Combining CMOS technology together with an easy to use digital interface makes C3038 a low cost solution for higher quality video image application. The digital video port supplies a continuous 8/16 bit-wide image data stream. All camera functions, such as exposure, gamma, gain, white balance, 2 color matrix, windowing, are programmable through I C interface.

This camera module is assisted with an evaluation board, which makes our tasks easy. Japanese cubesat XI and German cubesat COMPASS-1, have used this camera module as their payload. Camera Images from cubesat XI, University of Tokyo, JAPAN

FUTURE PROSPECTS: Till date, our focus was on building a functional satellite and we chose the payload- a camera unit, to show its functionality. This might look as a trivial thing, but we consider it a significant step towards learning about space. Once we are equipped with the knowledge of making a picosatellite, our focus would be on developing a payload of scientific importance .

REFERENCES: 1. http://www.cubesat.org/ 2. http://www.electronics123.net/amazon/datasheet/C328R.pdf 3. http://www.beyondlogic.org/imaging/camera.htm 4. http://cubesat.wikidot.com/radiation 5. http://cubesat.wikidot.com/lenscamera 6.COMPASS-1,phase A study, by Artur Scholz, Oscar Moreno, Marco
Hammer, Georg Kinzy, Jens Giesselmann, Robert Klotz, Ali Aydinlioglu, Sylwia Czernik. 7. Feasibility Study of Picosatellite Camera Johnny Hartvig Olsen