Robust monocular vision navigation for spacecraft on-orbit service

Abstract

Spacecraft on-orbit serving is vital important for future space missions and is of interest of many countries. Relative motion determination is the major problem for spacecraft on-orbit servicing. Due to the advantages of monocular vision navigation system, it has been widely proposed for spacecraft approaching for the final stage. However, due to the model uncertainty and state mobility of the target spacecraft, a strong tracking filter is proposed to overcome the above issues in estimating relative position and attitude. This article first introduces how to set up, select and match feature markers. Followed by establishing a 6DOF spacecraft dynamics model and an imaging observation model based on quaternion. Then, the recursive process of Suboptimal Fading Extended Kalman Filter is implemented. Finally, numerical simulations are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.