A One-Master Multi-Slave Distributed Single-Pixel Imaging System for Space Exploration

Aiming at the limitations in complex space target detection, such as traditional optical array sensors’ vulnerability to radiation damage, monostatic payload coupling hindering close-in detection, and photometric information loss from single-perspective observation, a novel one-master multi-slave distributed single-pixel imaging system is proposed. This system physically decouples a standoff master node responsible for long-range light modulation from micro/nano-satellite slave nodes equipped with single-pixel detectors for silent close-in detection. Theoretically, based on the bidirectional reflectance distribution function and the principle of light path reciprocity, a multi-view forward photometric model is established, revealing the physical mechanism of synchronously acquiring multi-view differential shading features. Addressing severe conditions of extremely low signal-to-noise ratio in space and limited spaceborne computational power, the system discards high-latency compressive sensing algorithms and introduces a full-sampling Hadamard fast reconstruction mechanism with datalink-free synchronization. A desktop-level physical experiment demonstrates that this mechanism reduces the reconstruction time complexity and effectively preserves the photometric features of different target structures under noise interference. This study achieves high-fidelity extraction of multi-view continuous shading features of space targets, laying a solid theoretical and hardware foundation for future single-pixel 3D surface reconstruction and computational super-resolution of non-cooperative targets.