Study of a Cubesat dual band infrared imager for hydric stress observation from space

Abstract

CubeSats are one of the main projects for the present and future in space, specially in academic environments. Due to their low price, these nanosatellite are the perfect means for students to get involved in space missions and develop satellites from scratch. This is the case of OUTFI-Next (Orbital Utility For Thermal Imaging), the new CubeSat promoted by the University of Liege and the Centre Spatial de Liège.

After the success of OUFTI-1 (Orbital Utility For Telecommunication Innovation) which was launched in 2016 with the goal of providing support with D-STAR communication and the widely advanced OUFTI-2, which is expected to outperform OUFTI-1 characteristics, OUFTI-Next was conceived. The objective of this 3U CubeSat (30cm x 10cm x 10cm) is to provide a smart irrigation strategy of agricultural fields around the world. This will be carried out by measuring hydric stresses in crops, detecting lack of water in the plants by monitoring the leaf surface temperature with an infrared camera.

Now, in its third year of development, it has been thought about converting the demonstrator into a dual-band imager, working in Middle Wave Infra-Red (MWIR) and Long Wave Infra-Red (LWIR). The purpose of this document is to report the feasibility of this concept. To do so, the radiometric budget of the satellite in both bands, MWIR and LWIR, will be analyzed, as well as the Signal to Noise Ratio, considering the optics and the different types of detectors available.