With the space industry's increasing focus upon multi-spacecraft formation flight missions, the ability to precisely determine system topology and the orientation of member spacecraft relative to both inertial space and each other is becoming a critical design requirement. Topology determination in satellite systems has traditionally made use of GPS or ground uplink position data for low Earth orbits, or, alternatively, inter-satellite ranging between all formation pairs. While these techniques work, they are not ideal for extension to interplanetary missions or to large fleets of decentralized, mixed-function spacecraft. The Vision-Based Attitude and Formation Determination System (VBAFDS) represents a novel solution to both the navigation and topology determination problems with an integrated approach that combines a miniature star tracker with a suite of robust processing algorithms. By combining a single range measurement with vision data to resolve complete system topology, the VBAFDS design represents a simple, resource-efficient solution that is not constrained to certain Earth orbits or formation geometries. In this paper, analysis and design of the VBAFDS integrated guidance, navigation and control (GN&C) technology will be discussed, including hardware requirements, algorithm development, and simulation results in the context of potential mission applications.


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    Title :

    Integrated Vision-Based System for Spacecraft Attitude and Topology Determination for Formation Flight Missions


    Contributors:
    A. Rogers (author) / K. Anderson (author) / A. Mracek (author) / R. Zenick (author)

    Publication date :

    2004


    Size :

    13 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English





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