Design of a Visual Pose Estimation Algorithm for Moon Landing
This addresses navigation accuracy for spacecraft landing on the Moon, but appears incremental as it builds on existing crater-based methods.
The study tackled the problem of spacecraft navigation drift during Moon landing by proposing a terrain absolute navigation method using crater positions, and simulation results showed the algorithm's accuracy and the effect of crater number on estimation.
In order to make a pinpoint landing on the Moon, the spacecraft's navigation system must be accurate. To achieve the desired accuracy, navigational drift caused by the inertial sensors must be corrected. One way to correct this drift is to use absolute navigation solutions. In this study, a terrain absolute navigation method to estimate the spacecraft's position and attitude is proposed. This algorithm uses the position of the craters below the spacecraft for estimation. Craters seen by the camera onboard the spacecraft are detected and identified using a crater database known beforehand. In order to focus on estimation algorithms, image processing and crater matching steps are skipped. The accuracy of the algorithm and the effect of the crater number used for estimation are inspected by performing simulations.