559 research outputs found
Autonomous Rendezvous with Non-cooperative Target Objects with Swarm Chasers and Observers
Space debris is on the rise due to the increasing demand for spacecraft for
com-munication, navigation, and other applications. The Space Surveillance
Network (SSN) tracks over 27,000 large pieces of debris and estimates the
number of small, un-trackable fragments at over 1,00,000. To control the growth
of debris, the for-mation of further debris must be reduced. Some solutions
include deorbiting larger non-cooperative resident space objects (RSOs) or
servicing satellites in or-bit. Both require rendezvous with RSOs, and the
scale of the problem calls for autonomous missions. This paper introduces the
Multipurpose Autonomous Ren-dezvous Vision-Integrated Navigation system
(MARVIN) developed and tested at the ORION Facility at Florida Institution of
Technology. MARVIN consists of two sub-systems: a machine vision-aided
navigation system and an artificial po-tential field (APF) guidance algorithm
which work together to command a swarm of chasers to safely rendezvous with the
RSO. We present the MARVIN architec-ture and hardware-in-the-loop experiments
demonstrating autonomous, collabo-rative swarm satellite operations
successfully guiding three drones to rendezvous with a physical mockup of a
non-cooperative satellite in motion.Comment: Presented at AAS/AIAA Spaceflight Mechanics Meeting 2023, 17 pages, 9
figures, 3 table
Application of advanced technology to space automation
Automated operations in space provide the key to optimized mission design and data acquisition at minimum cost for the future. The results of this study strongly accentuate this statement and should provide further incentive for immediate development of specific automtion technology as defined herein. Essential automation technology requirements were identified for future programs. The study was undertaken to address the future role of automation in the space program, the potential benefits to be derived, and the technology efforts that should be directed toward obtaining these benefits
2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy
This document is an update (new photos used) of the PDF version of the 2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy that will be available to download on the OCT Public Website. The updated 2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy, or "technology dictionary", uses a technology discipline based approach that realigns like-technologies independent of their application within the NASA mission portfolio. This tool is meant to serve as a common technology discipline-based communication tool across the agency and with its partners in other government agencies, academia, industry, and across the world
The 1995 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Information Technologies
This publication comprises the papers presented at the 1995 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Information Technologies held at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, on May 9-11, 1995. The purpose of this annual conference is to provide a forum in which current research and development directed at space applications of artificial intelligence can be presented and discussed
NASA Automated Rendezvous and Capture Review. A compilation of the abstracts
This document presents a compilation of abstracts of papers solicited for presentation at the NASA Automated Rendezvous and Capture Review held in Williamsburg, VA on November 19-21, 1991. Due to limitations on time and other considerations, not all abstracts could be presented during the review. The organizing committee determined however, that all abstracts merited availability to all participants and represented data and information reflecting state-of-the-art of this technology which should be captured in one document for future use and reference. The organizing committee appreciates the interest shown in the review and the response by the authors in submitting these abstracts
NASA SBIR abstracts of 1990 phase 1 projects
The research objectives of the 280 projects placed under contract in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 1990 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 program are described. The basic document consists of edited, non-proprietary abstracts of the winning proposals submitted by small businesses in response to NASA's 1990 SBIR Phase 1 Program Solicitation. The abstracts are presented under the 15 technical topics within which Phase 1 proposals were solicited. Each project was assigned a sequential identifying number from 001 to 280, in order of its appearance in the body of the report. The document also includes Appendixes to provide additional information about the SBIR program and permit cross-reference in the 1990 Phase 1 projects by company name, location by state, principal investigator, NASA field center responsible for management of each project, and NASA contract number
NASA Tech Briefs, January 2014
Topics include: Multi-Source Autonomous Response for Targeting and Monitoring of Volcanic Activity; Software Suite to Support In-Flight Characterization of Remote Sensing Systems; Visual Image Sensor Organ Replacement; Ultra-Wideband, Dual-Polarized, Beam-Steering P-Band Array Antenna; Centering a DDR Strobe in the Middle of a Data Packet; Using a Commercial Ethernet PHY Device in a Radiation Environment; Submerged AUV Charging Station; Habitat Demonstration Unit (HDU) Vertical Cylinder Habitat; Origami-Inspired Folding of Thick, Rigid Panels; A Novel Protocol for Decoating and Permeabilizing Bacterial Spores for Epifluorescent Microscopy; Method and Apparatus for Automated Isolation of Nucleic Acids from Small Cell Samples; Enabling Microliquid Chromatography by Microbead Packing of Microchannels; On-Command Force and Torque Impeding Devices (OC-FTID) Using ERF; Deployable Fresnel Rings; Transition-Edge Hot-Electron Microbolometers for Millimeter and Submillimeter Astrophysics; Spacecraft Trajectory Analysis and Mission Planning Simulation (STAMPS) Software; Cross Support Transfer Service (CSTS) Framework Library; Arbitrary Shape Deformation in CFD Design; Range Safety Flight Elevation Limit Calculation Software; Frequency-Modulated, Continuous-Wave Laser Ranging Using Photon-Counting Detectors; Calculation of Operations Efficiency Factors for Mars Surface Missions; GPU Lossless Hyperspectral Data Compression System; Robust, Optimal Subsonic Airfoil Shapes; Protograph-Based Raptor-Like Codes; Fuzzy Neuron: Method and Hardware Realization; Kalman Filter Input Processor for Boresight Calibration; Organizing Compression of Hyperspectral Imagery to Allow Efficient Parallel Decompression; and Temperature Dependences of Mechanisms Responsible for the Water-Vapor Continuum Absorption
Multimodal Navigation for Accurate Space Rendezvous Missions
© Cranfield University 2021. All rights reserved. No part of
this publication may be reproduced without the written
permission of the copyright ownerRelative navigation is paramount in space missions that involve rendezvousing
between two spacecraft. It demands accurate and continuous estimation of the six
degree-of-freedom relative pose, as this stage involves close-proximity-fast-reaction
operations that can last up to five orbits. This has been routinely achieved thanks to
active sensors such as lidar, but their large size, cost, power and limited operational
range remain a stumbling block for en masse on-board integration. With the onset
of faster processing units, lighter and cheaper passive optical sensors are emerging as
the suitable alternative for autonomous rendezvous in combination with computer
vision algorithms. Current vision-based solutions, however, are limited by adverse
illumination conditions such as solar glare, shadowing, and eclipse. These effects are
exacerbated when the target does not hold cooperative markers to accommodate the
estimation process and is incapable of controlling its rotational state.
This thesis explores novel model-based methods that exploit sequences of monoc ular images acquired by an on-board camera to accurately carry out spacecraft
relative pose estimation for non-cooperative close-range rendezvous with a known
artificial target. The proposed solutions tackle the current challenges of imaging in
the visible spectrum and investigate the contribution of the long wavelength infrared
(or “thermal”) band towards a combined multimodal approach.
As part of the research, a visible-thermal synthetic dataset of a rendezvous
approach with the defunct satellite Envisat is generated from the ground up using a
realistic orbital camera simulator. From the rendered trajectories, the performance
of several state-of-the-art feature detectors and descriptors is first evaluated for
both modalities in a tailored scenario for short and wide baseline image processing
transforms. Multiple combinations, including the pairing of algorithms with their
non-native counterparts, are tested. Computational runtimes are assessed in an
embedded hardware board.
From the insight gained, a method to estimate the pose on the visible band is
derived from minimising geometric constraints between online local point and edge
contour features matched to keyframes generated offline from a 3D model of the
target. The combination of both feature types is demonstrated to achieve a pose
solution for a tumbling target using a sparse set of training images, bypassing the
need for hardware-accelerated real-time renderings of the model.
The proposed algorithm is then augmented with an extended Kalman filter
which processes each feature-induced minimisation output as individual pseudo measurements, fusing them to estimate the relative pose and velocity states at
each time-step. Both the minimisation and filtering are established using Lie group
formalisms, allowing for the covariance of the solution computed by the former to be automatically incorporated as measurement noise in the latter, providing
an automatic weighing of each feature type directly related to the quality of the
matches. The predicted states are then used to search for new feature matches in the
subsequent time-step. Furthermore, a method to derive a coarse viewpoint estimate
to initialise the nominal algorithm is developed based on probabilistic modelling of
the target’s shape. The robustness of the complete approach is demonstrated for
several synthetic and laboratory test cases involving two types of target undergoing
extreme illumination conditions.
Lastly, an innovative deep learning-based framework is developed by processing
the features extracted by a convolutional front-end with long short-term memory cells,
thus proposing the first deep recurrent convolutional neural network for spacecraft
pose estimation. The framework is used to compare the performance achieved by
visible-only and multimodal input sequences, where the addition of the thermal band
is shown to greatly improve the performance during sunlit sequences. Potential
limitations of this modality are also identified, such as when the target’s thermal
signature is comparable to Earth’s during eclipse.PH
NASA SBIR abstracts of 1991 phase 1 projects
The objectives of 301 projects placed under contract by the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are described. These projects were selected competitively from among proposals submitted to NASA in response to the 1991 SBIR Program Solicitation. The basic document consists of edited, non-proprietary abstracts of the winning proposals submitted by small businesses. The abstracts are presented under the 15 technical topics within which Phase 1 proposals were solicited. Each project was assigned a sequential identifying number from 001 to 301, in order of its appearance in the body of the report. Appendixes to provide additional information about the SBIR program and permit cross-reference of the 1991 Phase 1 projects by company name, location by state, principal investigator, NASA Field Center responsible for management of each project, and NASA contract number are included
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