Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The proposed project will develop novel approaches to intelligent real-time tracking of spacecraft and similar objects using active LIDAR sensors. In recent decades, active sensors have become an alternative to conventional CCD cameras, avoiding the need for extensive ground support and pre-flight planning. Our collaboration between researchers at Ryerson University, the Canadian Space Agency, and Neptec Design Group will address several operational and algorithmic challenges that currently hamper LIDAR systems. New technologies developed under this program will be tested on Neptec's TriDAR tracking system. These innovations will improve system performance, increase reliability and expand the range of TriDAR industrial applications. Immune to variable ambient lighting conditions, self-illuminating active sensors scan an object with a laser beam and deliver 3D range data for pose estimation. Active sensors are particularly useful for close-range operations between spacecraft. Sensors of this type can measure relative position, orientation and speed. The key goals of the project are: Goal 1 - the application of algebraic constraint analysis to (a) aid mission planners in the selection of productive scanning area and patterns, and (b) provide a consistent real-time assessment of tracking accuracy; and Goal 2 - the development of motion-accommodating pose estimation based on Kalman Filtering (KF) and other signal processing techniques to propagate pose when (a) fast motion may be involved, and (b) static tracking accuracy, as referred to in Goal 1, is limited. The proposed project will contribute to HQP training and will increase the involvement of Canadian post-secondary institutions in advanced science and technology research areas of interest to the Canadian Space Program. The developed infrastructure will attract researches from other universities across the Great Toronto Area giving possibility to obtain real range data to validate the performance computer vision algorithms.