Real-time robust motion tracking using 3D point cloud for space debris removal

This paper discusses a motion tracking system for space debris removal using 3D point cloud data. Real-time robust motion tracking is essential for successful rendezvous and docking with a tumbling space debris target. Although various motion tracking methods have been developed for such a mission, the robustness is not guaranteed when a complete target image cannot be obtained within a sensor's limited field of view. We propose a real-time robust motion tracking method that focuses on a payload adapter ring, which is an attachment interface between a satellite and rocket. This method can provide a target pose even when sensor data of the tracking feature is limited as in the above-mentioned case. Moreover, this method is simply designed to enable real-time calculations using limited computational resources. The practical capability of the proposed method was experimentally verified using a small satellite mock-up and compared with the conventional Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm. The experimental results proved that the proposed method can perform real-time motion tracking with high accuracy even when an obtained image is partially missing information. In this experiment, when using the proposed method, the useful field of view for motion tracking was increased by 66 % when compared with the ICP algorithm.