The TinyV3RSE Hardware-in-the-Loop Vision-Based Navigation Facility.

Area of Science:

• Aerospace Engineering
• Robotics
• Computer Vision

Background:

• Increasing numbers of interplanetary probes necessitate spacecraft autonomy for cost reduction and riskier operations.
• Spacecraft perception of the external environment is critical for motion planning and actuation, often relying on camera navigation sensors.
• Realistic image datasets are crucial for developing, validating, and testing autonomous algorithms for space exploration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a hardware-in-the-loop simulation facility for generating realistic image datasets for spacecraft autonomous navigation.
• To detail the design, component selection, and performance analysis of the developed simulation facility.
• To demonstrate the facility's applicability by testing image processing algorithms for space exploration.

Main Methods:

• Established facility design relationships and identified critical parameters for camera, lens, and screen components.
• Analytically and numerically studied performance in terms of geometrical accuracy and optical distortions.
• Defined and evaluated calibration procedures to compensate for hardware misalignment and errors.

Main Results:

• Developed a hardware-in-the-loop simulation facility at the DART Laboratory.
• Quantified geometrical accuracy and optical distortion performance of the system.
• Demonstrated effective calibration procedures and validated the facility with image processing algorithms.

Conclusions:

• The developed hardware-in-the-loop facility provides a robust platform for generating realistic image data for spacecraft autonomous navigation.
• The facility enables the design, validation, and testing of vision-based algorithms crucial for future space exploration missions.
• This work contributes to advancing spacecraft autonomy through improved simulation and testing capabilities.