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Visual localization for asteroid touchdown operation based on local image features

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A Correction to this article was published on 11 February 2022

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Abstract

In an asteroid sample-return mission, accurate position estimation of the spacecraft relative to the asteroid is essential for landing at the target point. During the missions of Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, the main part of the visual position estimation procedure was performed by human operators on the Earth based on a sequence of asteroid images acquired and sent by the spacecraft. Although this approach is still adopted in critical space missions, there is an increasing demand for automated visual position estimation, so that the time and cost of human intervention may be reduced. In this paper, we propose a method for estimating the relative position of the spacecraft and asteroid during the descent phase for touchdown from an image sequence using state-of-the-art techniques of image processing, feature extraction, and structure from motion. We apply this method to real Ryugu images that were taken by Hayabusa2 from altitudes of 20 km-500 m. It is demonstrated that the method has practical relevance for altitudes within the range of 5-1 km. This result indicates that our method could improve the efficiency of the ground operation in the global mapping and navigation during the touchdown sequence, whereas full automation and autonomous on-board estimation are beyond the scope of this study. Furthermore, we discuss the challenges of developing a completely automatic position estimation framework.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant No. 18H01628.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-8654, Japan

    Yoshiyuki Anzai & Takehisa Yairi

  2. RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, Tokyo, 103-0027, Japan

    Naoya Takeishi

  3. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara, 252-5210, Japan

    Yuichi Tsuda & Naoko Ogawa

Authors
  1. Yoshiyuki Anzai
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  2. Takehisa Yairi
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  3. Naoya Takeishi
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  4. Yuichi Tsuda
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  5. Naoko Ogawa
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yoshiyuki Anzai.

Additional information

Yoshiyuki Anzai is an M.Eng. student in aerospace engineering at the University of Tokyo, Japan. He received his B.Eng. degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan in 2018. His research interests include computer vision, robotics, and spacecraft navigation.

Takehisa Yairi is currently a professor at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST) of the University of Tokyo. He received his B.Eng., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan in 1994, 1996, and 1999 respectively. His research interests include anomaly detection, health monitoring, fault diagnosis, learning dynamical systems, nonlinear dimensionality reduction, as well as applications of machine learning and probabilistic inference to aerospace systems.

Naoya Takeishi received his B.Eng., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 2013, 2015, and 2018, respectively. He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, Tokyo, Japan. His research interests include operator-theoretic analysis of dynamical systems and knowledge-guided machine learning. He has also been working on visual navigation and mapping for asteroid exploration and fault detection of artificial satellites.

Yuichi Tsuda received his Ph.D. degree in aeronautics and astronautics from the University of Tokyo in 2003, and joined JAXA in 2003 as a research associate. He was a visiting scholar of the Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan and the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder in 2008–2009. He was a deputy lead of the IKAROS project, the world’s first interplanetary solar sail mission. He is currently a professor of Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS)/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and is also the project manager of Hayabusa2, an asteroid sample-return mission. His research interests include astrodynamics, spacecraft system, and deep space exploration.

Naoko Ogawa received her B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees in mathematical engineering and information physics in 2000, 2002, and 2005, respectively, from the University of Tokyo, Japan. From 2004 to 2008 she was a research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Since 2008, she has been a research engineer at ISAS, JAXA. Her current research interests include astrodynamics, mission design, robotics, as well as spacecraft systems and operation.

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Anzai, Y., Yairi, T., Takeishi, N. et al. Visual localization for asteroid touchdown operation based on local image features. Astrodyn 4, 149–161 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42064-020-0075-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42064-020-0075-8

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