Reflective curved baffle for micro star trackers

Abstract

To help with the further development of a micro star tracker, we need to design a baffle which is smaller than conventional stray light baffles. We devised an algorithm to generate hybrid baffle design which combines a minimum number of vanes and mathematically generated curve mirror surfaces between vanes to reflect back any stray light outside of the desired field of view (FOV) away from the image sensor. We generate three baffle designs for a 3mm image sensor with an FOV of 10°: 1) baffle diameter of 9mm and the length of the baffle of 17.01mm with 3 vanes and curved mirror surface, 2) baffle diameter of 8mm and the length of the baffle of 13mm with 3 vanes and curved mirror surface and 3) baffle diameter of 7mm and the length of the baffle of 9mm with 2 vanes and curved mirror surface. Light attenuation performance for all three designs is analyzed and verified through ray tracing software “OpticStudio™.”.