Toward Velocity Estimation Using Motion Blurs of a Single Image for Planetary Landers

Abstract

For planetary exploration missions using a lander, autonomous pinpoint landing capability whose precision is less than 100-meter must be needed in order to land on limited investigation areas. This capability cannot be realized with an inertial navigation system in terms of accuracy, so that the inertial error should be reduced in some way. One of solutions is image-based velocity measurement in a navigation path of the planetary lander. However, images taken by the lander have probrems such as frame rate limit and motion blur. Moreover, the available onboard resources of computation are limited. This paper proposes a velocity estimation method using a single blurred image for the pinpoint planatary landing. We present the method based on cepstral analysis and discuss feasibility through resource evaluation with a space-grade FPGA.