TECHNOLOGIES AND ALGORITHMS FOR AUTONOMOUS POSE DETERMINATION FOR SMALL SATELLITES

This paper investigates the potential of multiple architectures for spacecraft pose determination relying on active and passive electro-optical sensors suitable for being used on board of small satellites. Clearly, each technological solution has its specific impact on the techniques and algorithms necessary to process the acquired data. The goal of these algorithms is to provide frequent and accurate estimates of the parameters representing the relative position and attitude between two space platforms. This information is required for many space applications, like formation flying and on-orbit servicing, which involve the autonomous execution of coordinated manoeuvres between two or more spacecraft flying in close-proximity. The algorithms analysed in this paper have been conceived by the Aerospace Systems Team of the University of Naples “Federico II” to tackle the tasks of pose acquisition and tracking by processing either monocular images, acquired by passive cameras, or three-dimensional point clouds, measured by active (scanning or scanner-less) LIDARs. Numerical simulations and experimental tests (within a dedicated facility) are realized to evaluate algorithms’ performance in terms of pose estimation accuracy and computational efficiency.