Synthetic tracking for orbital object detection in LEO

Kurzfassung

Passive optical systems are limited in their capabilities to detect and track unknown objects in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), especially if these are very faint. The established streaking methods that utilize long exposure times suffer from loss of signal due to the fact that the photons reflected by the object are distributed over several dozens to hundreds of image pixels and form a streak. The last years have seen a rebirth of 'Synthetic Tracking'. This approach mitigates the effect of the photon distribution by taking many pictures with short exposure times and adding up the signal of these images. This leads to the light being focused on a few pixels and less noise from surrounding pixels. We propose the use of ST for the detection of LEO objects on graphics hardware and evaluate its real-time capabilities for future use in conjunction with a ranging laser to obtain accurate trajectory information.