Abstract
A novel crater detection method for moon landing system is proposed. This proposal assumes that it is applied to SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) project aiming at the pin-point landing to the moon surface. The point where the lander should land is judged by the position relations of the craters obtained via camera, so the real-time image processing becomes important element. Besides, in the SLIM project, 400kg-class lander is assumed, therefore, high-performance computers for image processing cannot be equipped. The image processing is going to realize high-speed processing by using the FPGA circuit for parallel computation. Furthermore, as the crater detection method, we try to apply an object recognition method using Haar-Like feature. This Haar-Like feature is a technique used for the face detection with the digital camera, and is suitable for rapid object detection based on distribution of the light and shade of the image. Generally the surface of the moon image is only the light and shade, therefore, this method is suitable for the high-speed detection of the crater. In this paper, the precision and rapidity of the crater detection using Haar-Like feature is shown by computer simulation.
