Iron Meteorite Imaging System – CSULA

INSTITUTION

California State University, Los Angeles

CLASS

Cobalt Class (2019 – 2020)

STUDENT TEAM

Benjamin Campos, Electrical Engineering
Angel Gonzales, Mechanical Engineering
Raymond Lu, Mechanical Engineering
Vincent Rich, Electrical Engineering

Scientific & Technical Guidance

Dr. Laurence Garvie, Research Professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration, ASU
Jose Luis Perez, CSULA
Dr. Ofelia Quintero, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

ACADEMIC GUIDANCE

Dr. Ted Nye, Instructor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, CSULA
Dr. Mike Thorburn, Director of Capstone Senior Design, CSULA

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

To prepare for scientific investigations at Psyche, an imaging system is sought to help determine the bulk chemical compositions of iron meteorites from their optical images. Meteorite experts use their knowledge to recognize the inclusions in meteorites based primarily on color, texture, and reflectivity. A major challenge of this project is to translate this human knowledge to an automated recognition system that can replicate the human expertise. To work towards this goal, teams are designing and building an imaging system to be used to image meteorite samples so that each image has the exact same lighting and image quality.

This work was created in partial fulfillment of California State University Capstone Course “EE 496101”. The work is a result of the Psyche Student Collaborations component of NASA’s Psyche Mission (https://psyche.asu.edu). “Psyche: A Journey to a Metal World” [Contract number NNM16AA09C] is part of the NASA Discovery Program mission to solar system targets. Trade names and trademarks of ASU and NASA are used in this work for identification only. Their usage does not constitute an official endorsement, either expressed or implied, by Arizona State University or National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of ASU or NASA.