Simulation Tool to Study High Performance Avionic for Active Debris Removal Missions

This paper describes the development of a simulation tool that allows to perform trade-offs of avionic architectures for future Active Debris Removal (ADR) space missions. The main challenges of ADR missions lay in their ability to first detect and track a target, then perform proximity operation and capture. All these mission phases imply a variety of sensors which are mainly needed for the Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) of the spacecraft. First, sensors outputs need to be processed to retrieve position and attitude estimation of the target, then results are transmitted to the GNC algorithms for precise navigation. To obtain accurate target information, the algorithms require a high input data rate and multiple sensor sources. At the EPFL Space Center, we have developed a simulation tool to help design the highly demanding avionic of our ADR mission, CleanSpace One (CSO). The simulator supports analyses and “trade-offs” with respect to various hardware configurations. To reproduce realistic scenarios, the simulator has to consider requirements of the different mission phases since they vary in term of data processing, vision algorithm complexity and control loop speed. This newly developed tool has been used to investigate multiple hardware configurations with specific ADR requirements. Results obtained during these simulations offer a first set of consolidated requirements that will help the design of the highly demanding avionic needed for the mission.