Future missions to asteroids and comets will likely encounter bodies which are tumbling (i.e., not in principal axis rotation), and which have poor or non-existent prior shape models. In this work, simulated images of a tumbling comet are processed by a sequential Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) method and a novel approach is employed to generate initial landmark positions without a detailed shape model. The a priori landmark position method uses a subset of manually identified surface landmarks, and the full set of landmark observations are then employed by the EKF SLAM to estimate the small body spin state and scaled moments of inertia; the spacecraft position and velocity (the spacecraft attitude is provided by an independent attitude determination system); and the final surface landmark locations. An interpolation method for the provided spacecraft attitude values is also provided. The initial landmark generation and SLAM method is successful in estimating the spin state of the simulated body, with final smoothed error magnitudes lower than 1 degree for the small body orientation and 2 degrees per day for the small body angular velocity.
Tumbling Small Body Spin State Estimation Using Independently Simulated Images
J Astronaut Sci
The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences ; 69 , 1 ; 51-76
2022-02-01
26 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Tumbling , Small Body Spin State , Estimation , Simulated Images , Principal Axis Rotation , SLAM , EKF , LandmarkPositions Engineering , Aerospace Technology and Astronautics , Mathematical Applications in the Physical Sciences , Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics, Space Exploration and Astronautics)
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