Bionic Polarization Navigation Sensor Based On An Integrated Photodetector

Polarization navigation is becoming popular since the advantages of no accumulated error, strong autonomy. It could be hardly affected by the external condition and has a simple system. Scientists made many studies on insects, which could use polarization pattern of skylight to navigate, like desert ants, bees and so on. They also built polarization navigation sensor to imitate the visual nervous system of insects. The sensor in the future will undoubtedly be miniaturization and integration. And the trend would be accelerated with the rising and developing of MEMS technology.A new polarization navigation sensor which imitated the visual nervous system of the desert ant was designed based on the previous studies. The hardware system of the navigation sensor included the polarized light detection unit, which could detect polarized light and convert light to electricity, the control processing unit, of which MSP430 microcontroller was the core and power unit. The polarization navigation program was designed. It could fetch and process the data, and also communicate with PC.Performance test experiments of this polarization navigation sensor were carried out indoors and outdoors mounted on the test platform. The error angle was within ±0.9° in the test of indoor. And it became within ±0.1° after the error compensation process. The error angle was within ±1.5° in the test of outdoor. The results of the tests showed this sensor worked precisely and stably, and it could meet navigational demand.In addition, data communication interface applying on PC was designed based on LabVIEW. This interface could display the data of the navigation sensor in numeric and waveform in real time. What’s more, it could also display the data of the electronic compass sensor. It provided an interface for the next generation of integrated navigation sensors.The polarization navigation sensor designed in this paper had a small size and low power consumption. It worked precisely and stably, and was at low cost. Moreover, it was easy to install and equipped with in a small UAV. The sensor was believed to have good market development potential.