Bibcode
Maroto, O.; Diez-Merino, Laura; Carbonell, Jordi; Tomàs, Albert; Reyes, M.; Joven-Alvarez, E.; Martín, Y.; Morales de los Ríos, J. A.; del Peral, Luis; Rodríguez-Frías, M. D.
Referencia bibliográfica
Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 9154, id. 915424 14 pp. (2014).
Fecha de publicación:
7
2014
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
The Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Extreme Universe Space Observatory
(EUSO) will be launched and attached to the Japanese module of the
International Space Station (ISS). Its aim is to observe UV photon
tracks produced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays developing in the
atmosphere and producing extensive air showers. The key element of the
instrument is a very wide-field, very fast, large-lense telescope that
can detect extreme energy particles with energy above 1019
eV. The Atmospheric Monitoring System (AMS), comprising, among others,
the Infrared Camera (IRCAM), which is the Spanish contribution, plays a
fundamental role in the understanding of the atmospheric conditions in
the Field of View (FoV) of the telescope. It is used to detect the
temperature of clouds and to obtain the cloud coverage and cloud top
altitude during the observation period of the JEM-EUSO main instrument.
SENER is responsible for the preliminary design of the Front End
Electronics (FEE) of the Infrared Camera, based on an uncooled
microbolometer, and the manufacturing and verification of the prototype
model. This paper describes the flight design drivers and key factors to
achieve the target features, namely, detector biasing with electrical
noise better than 100μV from 1Hz to 10MHz, temperature control of the
microbolometer, from 10°C to 40°C with stability better than
10mK over 4.8hours, low noise high bandwidth amplifier adaptation of the
microbolometer output to differential input before analog to digital
conversion, housekeeping generation, microbolometer control, and image
accumulation for noise reduction. It also shows the modifications
implemented in the FEE prototype design to perform a trade-off of
different technologies, such as the convenience of using linear or
switched regulation for the temperature control, the possibility to
check the camera performances when both microbolometer and analog
electronics are moved further away from the power and digital
electronics, and the addition of switching regulators to demonstrate the
design is immune to the electrical noise the switching converters
introduce. Finally, the results obtained during the verification phase
are presented: FEE limitations, verification results, including FEE
noise for each channel and its equivalent NETD and microbolometer
temperature stability achieved, technologies trade-off, lessons learnt,
and design improvement to implement in future project phases.