Handheld Image Based BRDF Measurement Tool

Monitoring and identification of resident space objects (RSOs) for space domain awareness relies on ground and space based optical telescope observation. Sunlight reflected off RSOs is measured and interpreted through use of software simulation packages, such as Time-domain Analysis Simulation for Advanced Tracking (TASAT). These software packages rely on laboratory measurements of RSO material bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) for accurate performance, but current BRDF databases feature incomplete datasets and as such would be greatly improved by additional BRDF measurement data. Collection of improved material BRDF datasets is limited by the current state of BRDF measurement tools, which are generally large, expensive, slow, and require highly trained personnel for operation. As such, compact, low-cost instrumentation that enables rapid BRDF measurement by minimally trained operators is highly desirable for improvement of material BRDF databases used for RSO monitoring. To meet this challenge, Nanohmics proposes to advance technology developed under the Phase I effort into an automated handheld, image based, multispectral BRDF measurement tool for rapid and affordable characterization of BRDF by minimally trained operators.