Abstract: As an optical sensor to measure the attitude angle of earth, infrared earth sensor is an important instrument for satellite attitude measurement and control. An array triple FOV micro static infrared earth sensor is proposed and designed for LEO satellites (300~1600 km). Three sections of earth’s infrared radiation circle position are measured via three array infrared detectors. A design scheme with low cost, low power, miniaturized is adopted by using 80C32 and FPGA. Earth center vector is calculated via the vector product of earth edge points. Experiment results verify that the attitude random error of proposed infrared earth sensor is less than 0.06°.

Key words: infrared earth sensor, focal plane, infrared detector, triple FOV, earth center vector