Compact Sun Sensor with Graded Mask and Redundant Domains

Multiple sensor units are integrated onto a single chip substrate, merging what would traditionally be separate components into one unified device. This reduces overall device complexity while maintaining full hemisphere field of view coverage through the coordinated arrangement of the sensor units on the chip.

The sensor units are arranged in a three-dimensional configuration on the chip, utilizing vertical stacking and layered structures rather than simple planar expansion. This allows full hemisphere coverage to be achieved within a compact volume by exploiting the third dimension, thereby avoiding proportional increases in device footprint and complexity.

The sensor units are nested within a compact chip structure, with each sensor unit containing its own sensor area, mask, and control circuitry in a hierarchical arrangement. This nesting allows full hemisphere field of view capability to be achieved while minimizing overall device volume and weight by efficiently packing components within each other's spatial envelopes.

The mask structures are implemented as thin film layers deposited over the sensor areas, rather than bulky three-dimensional structures. This use of thin films significantly reduces the volume and weight of each sensor unit while maintaining the optical functionality required for full hemisphere field of view coverage.

The control circuitry is designed with multi-functional capabilities that serve both normal operation and redundancy management. The same control logic handles sensor readout, power management, and fault detection across multiple domains, eliminating the need for separate dedicated circuits for each function and thereby reducing overall device complexity while maintaining reliability through redundancy.

The chip is divided into multiple independent power and signal domains, each capable of autonomous operation. This segmentation allows redundancy to be implemented in a modular fashion where each domain can be independently controlled and managed, reducing the complexity of managing redundancy across the entire device by breaking it down into manageable segments.

Pixel offsetting patterns and graded shielding configurations are pre-designed and predetermined during the chip fabrication process. By establishing these precision-critical features as part of the standard manufacturing sequence rather than requiring post-fabrication adjustment, the measurement precision benefits are achieved while keeping manufacturing precision requirements within standard fabrication capabilities.

The pixel offset distances and shielding gradient parameters are optimized during design to achieve the desired measurement precision while remaining compatible with standard manufacturing tolerances. By carefully selecting parameter values that balance performance requirements with manufacturing capabilities, high measurement precision is achieved without imposing unrealistic precision demands on the fabrication process.