Method for Localizing, Waking-Up, and Estimating Direction of Femto-Satellites

Femto-satellites are very small satellites that can be deployed in constellations from a larger mothership satellite for distributed measurement. They are too small to accommodate the GNSS receivers that many satellites use for navigation, but they can be located with an electromagnetic beam from the mothership satellite. The mothership satellite scans this beam across a constellation of femto-satellites. When the beam scans across a particular femto-satellite, the femto-satellite transmits an acknowledgement to the mothership satellite, e.g., by retroreflecting the beam or via a separate radio link. The beam can be modulated with commands for the femto-satellite, such as to make a measurement or transmit previously acquired data, as well with commands for determining the femto-satellite's location, such as a time stamp or beam pointing information. The femto-satellite can determine its location from the information modulated onto the beam or transmit the time stamp to the mothership satellite for localization.

Researchers

Departments: Dept of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Technology Areas: Communication Systems: Satellites / Industrial Engineering & Automation: Logistics
Impact Areas: Connected World

  • localizing, waking-up, and estimating direction of femto-satellites
    United States of America | Granted | 12,179,942
  • localizing, waking-up, and estimating direction of femto-satellites
    United States of America | Published application
  • localizing, waking-up, and estimating direction of femto-satellites
    China | Published application
  • localizing, waking-up, and estimating direction of femto-satellites
    European Patent Convention | Published application
  • localizing, waking-up, and estimating direction of femto-satellites
    Japan | Published application
  • localizing, waking-up, and estimating direction of femto-satellites
    Canada | Published application

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