Speaker
Description
This presentation summarizes a number of activities within the European Space Agency (ESA) in the area of Vision-Based Navigation (VBN), using mainly cameras in the visible range and in the thermal Infrared (combined as MultiSpectral cameras, resulting from trade-off studies on the most advantageous wavelength bands for robust feature tracking) and augmented with commercial LIDARs for improving the Navigation solution and the relative pose estimation in Debris Removal mission scenarios. These different sensors are useful and complementary under different conditions and distances to the target.
In particular the development of multispectral cameras (visible + thermal_IR) for Navigation is particularly challenging due to the difficulties in the thermal infrared testing on-ground, the need of reliable simulation tools with enough spatial resolution for the purpose of Vision-Based Navigation (VBN) and the possibility to have flight HW with the proper TRL level. As part of the activities in the Guidance, Navigation & Control Section TEC-SAG section at ESA/ESTEC several projects have been completed or are under development to gradually close those gaps (e.g. breadboard cameras aimed now to Engineering Models, version v6 of PANGU with Real-time image rendering for simulation of thermal infrared cameras, and TIRVOA for the correlation of results in vacuum with GNC lab experiments in open air of thermal infra-red cameras).
The multispectral cameras as part of the sensor suite for On-Orbit Servicing, Debris Removal, etc (collaborative and non-collaborative rendezvous) represent (as passive sensors) savings in terms of mass and power with the possibility of being a primary or functional back-up in the redundancy chain to other sensors with operational advantages (thermal signature allowing "to see in the dark" and differentiate materials on the surface of the spacecraft thanks to the variation in thermal signature resulting from the dependency on the emissivity).
In addition to multispectral cameras other prospective technologies have been explored for use in Debris Removal (e.g plenoptics, with very promising results acting in the far range distances as 2D sensor like a conventional camera and 3D-type sensor in the close range)
