Pose measurement of large non-cooperative satellite using structured light vision sensor

In final approach of rendezvous between a space robot and a large non-cooperative target, a single camera of the space robot can not observe a whole feature image of the large target to measure relative pose (attitude and position). To overcome this problem, a structured light is introduced to aid measurement. A partial rectangular framework of the target is chosen as measurement object. Firstly, the measurement model is built and four measurement coordinates systems are presented. Secondly, according to projection constraints on rectangle and circular points, a whole rectangle feature is reconstructed. Thirdly, using the whole rectangle and the structured light, transform matrix between camera and target coordinates systems is computed. Lastly, the relative pose of the partial rectangular framework is derived from the transform matrix. Several numerical simulations are studied to verify the method under different scenarios. The results show that the pose measurement is feasible and effective.