Relative Pose and Inertia Determination of Unknown Satellite Using Monocular Vision

Abstract

The paper proposes a two-stage algorithm for autonomous relative motion determination of noncooperative and unknown object flying in space. The algorithm is based on image processing and can be applied to motion determination of space debris with unknown geometry and dynamic characteristics. The first stage of the algorithm is aimed at forming a database of possible reference points of the object during continuous observation. Tensor of inertia, initial velocity, and angular velocity of the object are also estimated. Then, these parameters are used in the second stage of the algorithm to determine the relative motion in real time. The algorithm is studied numerically and tested using the video of the Chibis-M microsatellite separation.