LISA Pathfinder is an European Space Agency mission aiming to develop and verify the critical technology for the forthcoming space-based gravitational wave detectors. LISA Pathfinder is a controlled three-body system composed of two test masses and the enclosing spacecraft. One test mass is free-falling along the principal measurement axis and it is used as reference for the drag-free controller of the spacecraft. The second test mass is actuated at very low frequencies (below 1 mHz) in order to follow the free falling test mass. The system is conceived in order to demonstrate a Force per unit mass differential Test Mass noise lower than 3 x 10^(-14) x (1 + (f/0.003)^2) m / s^2 Hz^1/2 in the measurement bandwidth f = [1 - 30] mHz. This is achieved through state-of-the-art technology comprising inertial sensing, laser metrology, drag-free spacecraft controlling and ultra-precise spacecraft micro-propulsion.

Our Work

[1] Design and supervise the industrial development of the Inertial Sensor Front-End Electronics, which includes the Test Mass motion capacitive sensor with a noise level less than 1 aF / Hz^1/2 at 1 mHz and the electrostatic actuation circuit with 2 ppm / Hz^1/2 amplitude stability at 1 mHz.
[2] Build prototype circuit for the Inertial Sensor Front End Electronics, in order to verify the proposed design solutions.
[3] Build Test Mass capacitive simulator (6 fF simulator with 50 ppm /
Hz^1/2 stability at 1mHz) for the sensing circuit verification.
[4] Design and implement the actuation stability measurement for the Inertial Sensor Front End Electronics flight hardware [5] Model and simulate the Inertial Sensor Front End Electronics with different platforms including SPICE, Simulink and MATLAB. The MATLAB simulator will be integrated in the framework of the LTPDA Toolbox an object oriented MATLAB toolbox for advanced data analysis that is developed by the LISA Pathfinder data analysis team.

(see our design in 2005 and 2010)

For more information on LISA Pathfinder

European Space Agency web (http://sci.esa.int/lisa-pathfinder/)