Vibration effects on remote sensing satellite images

Vibration is a source of performance degradation in all optical imaging systems. Performance of high resolution remote sensing payloads is often limited due to satellite platform vibrations. Effects of Linear and high frequency sinusoidal vibrations on the system MTF are known exactly in closed form but the low frequency vibration effects is a random process and must be considered statistically. Usually the vibration MTF budget is defined based on the mission requirements and the overall MTF limitations. For analyzing low frequency effects, designer must know all the systems specifications and parameters. With a good understanding of harmful vibration frequencies and amplitudes in the system preliminary design phase, their effects could be removed totally or partially. This procedure is cost effective and let the designer to eliminate just harmful vibrations and avoids over-designing. In this paper we have analyzed the effects of low-frequency platform vibrations on the payload's modulation transfer function. We have used a statistical analysis to find the probability of imaging with a MTF equal or greater than a pre-defined budget for different missions. The worst and average cases have been discussed and finally we have proposed "look-up figures". Using these look-up figures, designer can choose the electro-optical parameters in such a way that vibration effects be less than its pre-defined budget. Furthermore, using the results, we can propose a damping profile based on which vibration frequencies and amplitudes must be eliminated to stabilize the payload system.