Star sensors and computer vision systems are generally used for spacecraft navigation in deep space, both of which make use of image sensors. To mitigate the payload of the spacecraft, a new star sensor prototype with extending use as a rendezvous and docking positioning system is described in this paper. An adaptive processing element is used to control the process of image acquiring, image pre-processing and image recognition, which makes the sharing of the image sensor feasible. The software is discussed about how to realize the two applications. The earth based experiments verify the feasibility and validity of the design, which may make a little contribution on the deep space explorations.

Date Published: 10 November 2007
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 6795, Second International Conference on Space Information Technology, 679521 (10 November 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.773996

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6795:
Second International Conference on Space Information Technology
Cheng Wang; Shan Zhong; Jiaolong Wei, Editor(s)