THOR-DAVIS: A neuromorphic camera to observe thunderstorms from inboard ISS.

The technical purpose of THOR-DAVIS is to test a new camera concept in space for observations of thunderclouds and their electrical activity at up to a resolution of 10 µs. The scientific purpose is to conduct video camera observations of thunderclouds and their electrical activity. The focus is on altitude-resolved measurements of activity at the top of the clouds and the stratosphere above. The camera type is a so-called neuromorphic camera (or event camera) where pixels are read out asynchronously when the pixel illumination changes. The goal is to understand, under realistic conditions, the use of such a camera for future use in space for observations of processes in severe electrical storms. The camera has a high temporal resolution 100.000 equivalent frame per second and a huge dynamic range of about 120 dB and is particularly well suited for this kind of observations. The camera weights about 200g and consumes about 1.5A in operation and is particularly well suited for space applications.

In this presentation we will give the status of the development of the THOR-DAVIS experiment to be conducted by the Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen during his upcoming ESA mission Huggin onboard the International Space Station (ISS). We’ll present the design of the payload based on a Davis 346 neuromorphic camera mounted on top of a Nikon D5 camera for handheld operation. The 2 cameras are controlled by an AstroPi unit based on a Raspberry Pi computer board.

Finally, we’ll give preliminary results of laboratory measurements made with the flight model.