Project HIPNOS: Case Study of High Performance Avionics for Active Debris Removal in Space

Abstract

The Clean Space initiative of the European Space Agency (ESA) seeks to decrease the environmental impact of space programmes by focusing, among others, on Active Debris Removal (ADR) and eDeorbit. In this direction, one of the main challenges is to autonomously track and approach a big non-cooperative satellite such as ENVISAT. To achieve the high level of autonomy required in this phase of the ADR mission, vision based navigation will guide a chaser spacecraft in real-time based on high-definition images acquired and processed on-board at high frame-rates. The increased complexity of these computer vision algorithms mandates the development and use of high performance avionics to provide one order of magnitude faster execution than today's conventional space-grade processors. In the context of ESA's project HIPNOS (HIgh Performance avionics solutioN for advanced and complex GNC Systems), we study algorithms and avionics architectures suitable for ADR. The examined algorithms base on image feature extraction and the architectures base on COTS SoC-FPGA devices. Preliminary analysis highlights the benefits of employing this avionics solution in future space missions.