Research of X-ray pulsar navigation simulation source

As an autonomous navigation method, X-ray pulsar navigation can provide position, timing and attitude information for various spacecrafts. Since the X-rays (1-20 keV) from the pulsar can not penetrate the earth atmosphere, an X-ray source in laboratory needs to be set up to test and calibrate the detector. In this paper an arbitrary X-ray pulse source to simulate the neutron pulsar signal is proposed. The main components of the simulation source are a grid controlled X-ray tube and arbitrary pulse generation electronics. With the arbitrary pulse voltage applied to the tube grid, the X-ray intensity is controlled. Through electron optics design, the tube electrode parameters are optimized A grid controlled X-ray tube is fabricated and tested. Using a micro-channel plate detector to detect and reconstruct the generated X-ray pulses, the similarity between the accumulated profile and the original pulsar profile is better than 95%. The frequency stability of the pulsar source emulator is about 2 x 10(-11).