SSC14 VII-7 An Autonomous Proximity Navigation Testbed for Nanosatellites

The goal of this work is to develop techniques and tools to enhance small-spacecraft in-orbit autonomy. The focus is on developing perception and control algorithms to enable autonomous proximity operations, and performing preliminary validation in a laboratory air-bearing testbed. To achieve this, we have developed cubesat engineering models equipped with a simple cold-gas propulsion system, on-board vision-based sensing and embedded computer for perception and control algorithms, and integrated them in the air-bearing testbed. Basic point-to-point autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance tasks in such a planar environment have been successfully demonstrated.