Autonomous Vehicle Awareness Sensors

AKELA is proposing to use a small, low cost, low power radar with operating parameters that can be quickly changed to explore the issues associated with the detection of moving targets from spaceborne platforms.  The radar will be used as a baseline to compare against other implementation alternatives in a simulation to investigate the trade space, and to use the trade-off results to perform a conceptual design of a minimum cost system.  Since our efforts build on existing experience and technology, we know where many of the risks to system implementation are.  This will allow us to focus on the impact of those risks in our simulation and conceptual design activities, and increases the chance that we will be able to identify a development path that mitigates those risks. BENEFIT: Successful completion of our proposed program will result in determining the feasibility of using a wide bandwidth radar for providing situational awareness and collision avoidance for spacecraft platforms.  The existing radars size, cost, and weight are very close to meeting the requirements suitable for a spacecraft.  Its operating capabilities give it the potential to be tailored to accomplish the autonomous vehicle awareness sensing requirement for spacecraft systems.