An innovative navigation scheme of powered descent phase for Mars pinpoint landing

Abstract Pinpoint landing (within 100 m from the target) is essential for future Mars exploration missions. This paper deals with one aspect of the pinpoint landing architecture—the navigation performance improvement during the powered descent phase, and proposes an innovative navigation scheme to obtain the vehicle complete and accurate states. On the basis of dead reckoning relying on the Inertial Measurement Unit, measurements of the Integrated Doppler Radar are adopted to correct the vehicle velocity and altitude. Distance between the vehicle and one Mars Orbiter as well as their line-of-sight relative velocity is measured by a radio sensor, and integrated in the filter to correct the vehicle horizontal position. The innovative navigation system is based on an Extend Kalman Filter. Two observation schemes are developed. One considers measurements of the Integrated Doppler Radar and radio range measurement. Another further considers radio velocity measurement. The performance of the innovative navigation scheme is greatly influenced by the position of the Mars Orbiter with respect to the target. Stochastic analyses are performed to obtain optimal locations of Mars Orbiter. Finally, the innovative navigation scheme performances are assessed through stochastic simulations. Its performance improvements are demonstrated by comparison with the Integrated Doppler Radar only navigation scheme.

[1]  S. Ploen,et al.  Performance trades for Mars pinpoint landing , 2006, 2006 IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[2]  Yanning Guo,et al.  Waypoint-Optimized Zero-Effort-Miss/Zero-Effort-Velocity Feedback Guidance for Mars Landing , 2013 .

[3]  Aron A. Wolf,et al.  A Comparison of Powered Descent Guidance Laws for Mars Pinpoint Landing. , 2006 .

[4]  Xiangyu Huang,et al.  GNC system scheme for lunar soft landing spacecraft , 2008 .

[5]  Canuto Enrico,et al.  Disturbance rejection in space applications: Problems and solutions , 2011, Proceedings of the 30th Chinese Control Conference.

[6]  M. Psiaki.  Backward-Smoothing Extended Kalman Filter , 2005 .

[7]  Christopher N. D'Souza,et al.  AN OPTIMAL GUIDANCE LAW FOR PLANETARY LANDING , 1997 .

[8]  J. Junkins,et al.  Optimal Estimation of Dynamic Systems , 2004 .

[9]  E.C. Wong,et al.  Guidance and Control Design for Powered Descent and Landing on Mars , 2007, 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[10]  Allan R. Klumpp,et al.  Apollo lunar descent guidance , 1974, Autom..

[11]  Simon Lacroix,et al.  Visual Landmark Constellation matching for spacecraft pinpoint landing , 2009 .

[12]  Premkumar R. Menon,et al.  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Navigation Strategy for Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent and Landing Telecommunication Relay Support , 2012 .

[13]  Sang-Young Park,et al.  Onboard orbit determination using GPS observations based on the unscented Kalman filter , 2010 .

[14]  A. Chen,et al.  Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing System Overview , 2008, 2008 IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[15]  J. Balaram,et al.  Mars Science Laboratory Simulations for Entry, Descent, and Landing , 2006 .

[16]  Klaus Janschek,et al.  Performance Analysis for Visual Planetary Landing Navigation Using Optical Flow and DEM Matching , 2006 .

[17]  Hutao Cui,et al.  A new approach based on crater detection and matching for visual navigation in planetary landing , 2014 .

[18]  Farzin Amzajerdian,et al.  LIDAR-Aided Inertial Navigation with Extended Kalman Filtering for Pinpoint Landing , 2009 .

[19]  E. Canuto,et al.  Planetary landing: Modelling and control of the propulsive descent , 2012, Proceedings of the 31st Chinese Control Conference.

[20]  Hang Guo,et al.  Kalman filtering for GPS/magnetometer integrated navigation system , 2010 .

[21]  R. Manning,et al.  Mars Exploration Entry, Descent, and Landing Challenges , 2007 .

[22]  Liu Zhang,et al.  MCAV/IMU integrated navigation for the powered descent phase of Mars EDL , 2010 .

[23]  Curtis W. Chen,et al.  Phoenix Landing Radar Heatshield Anomaly , 2011 .

[24]  Brian D. Pollard,et al.  A Radar Terminal Descent Sensor for the Mars Science Laboratory mission , 2009, 2009 IEEE Aerospace conference.

[25]  F. Ham,et al.  Observability, Eigenvalues, and Kalman Filtering , 1983, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[26]  F. Amzajerdian,et al.  Doppler lidar sensor for precision landing on the Moon and Mars , 2012, 2012 IEEE Aerospace Conference.