2018 Volume 16 Issue 7 Pages 691-697
This paper describes the conceptual study of a dust sensor with large sensitive area exploiting multi-layer insulation (MLI). The sensor targets dust particles having a size of 10 μm or more for detection and a hypervelocity possible to penetrate the outermost layer of MLI made of polyimide film (typically about 20 μm in thickness). The sensor of the dust instrument consists of the outermost layer of the MLI and piezoelectric (PE) elements attached on the layer. The PE elements detect elastic stress waves formed by impact pressure generated by a dust particle penetration to the layer. The electronics section shall have a function of ADC (analog-to-digital) sampling that records the signal waveforms output from the PE elements of the sensor section. In this paper, we will describe the study results of the initial concept study of the dust instrument.