Closed‐form solution of monocular vision‐based relative pose determination for RVD spacecrafts

Abstract

PurposeTo give a closed‐form solution of the relative pose determination problem based on monocular vision during final approach phase of spacecraft Rendzvous and Docking.Design/methodology/approachBased on the assumption of scaled orthographic projection, the model of perspective projection is simplified by representing the relative attitude using unit quaternion. Then a closed‐form solution is derived. Subsequently, this study correct the approximate solution to compensate the error caused by the assumption of scaled orthographic projection.FindingsExtensive simulation studies were conducted for the validation of the proposed algorithm using Matlab™. When there are no relative attitudes between RVD spacecrafts, target distance for camera=2‐20 m. The simulation results show that the largest relative error of corrected relative position parameters is about 0.12 percent. When distance between RVD spacecrafts exceeds 5 m, the largest error of corrected relative attitude parameters are less than 0.3°. When the distance between spacecrafts are constant, the relative attitude parameters are changed, respectively, the simulition results show the largest relative error of relative position is 1 percent, and largest error of estimated relative attitude is 1.2°, when a relative attitude angle reaches 20°.Originality/valueThe proposed algorithm avoids the multiple results problem in determining the relative position and attitude parameters and the closed‐form solution is simple and effective, is more suitable for on‐board implementation.