Development of the rendezvous radar for the Engineering Test Satellite VII

This paper describes the functions and performance of the rendezvous radar (RVR) developed for the rendezvous docking experiment system of Engineering Test Satellite VJJ (ETS-VJI). The RVR measures line of sight angle and distance between the chaser satellite and the target satellite of ETS-VJJ with low power consumption at high processing speed. These advanced features were realized by adopting dual mode intensity modulation of laser beam and embedded image recognition algorithm. The heritage of the development will be used for rendezvous docking system of future space transportation systems.