Lidar systems for precision navigation and safe landing on planetary bodies

Amzajerdian, Farzin; Pierrottet, Diego F.; Petway, Larry B.; Hines, Glenn D.; Roback, Vincent E.

doi:10.1117/12.904062

Cited by 66 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…3DLS devices are classified according to the position of the sensor, such as aerial laser scanners (ALS) referred to as airborne-based scanners [10,11]; mobile laser scanners that are installed on vehicles (MLS) [12]; personal laser scanners that are carried in a backpack [13,14]; offshore laser scanners used for boats (OLS) [15,16], and terrestrial laser scanners (TLS), which are ground-based scanners [3,17]. Nowadays these techniques are widely used for a number of applications, such as agriculture [18], archaeology [19], autonomous vehicles [20], robotics [21], geology [22], mining [23], rock mechanics [3], etc.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of High-Quality and Common Commercial Mirrors for Scanning Close-Range Surfaces Using 3D Laser Scanners: A Laboratory Experiment

Riquelme

Mas

2017

Remote Sensing

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Three Dimension (3D) laser scanners enable the acquisition of millions of points of a visible object. Terrestrial laser scanners (TLS) are ground-based scanners, and nowadays the available instruments have the ability of rotating their sensor in two axes, capturing almost any point. Since many sensors can only operate in a vertical position, they cannot capture points located beneath themselves. Consequently, these instruments are generally unable to capture data in a vertical descending direction. Moreover, since the device positioning has certain requirements of space and terrain stability, it is possible that specific regions of interest are outside the reach of the laser. A possible solution is to address the laser beam towards the desired direction by means of a mirror. Common mirrors are very cheap; therefore, they are easy to manipulate and to substitute in case they get broken. However, due to their careless fabrication process, it seems reasonable to think that they are unprecise. In contrast, front-end mirrors are more expensive and delicate, and consequently, deflecting angles are more precise. In this research, we designed a laboratory test to analyze the arising noise when standard and high-quality mirrors are used during the TLS scanning process. The results show that the noise introduced when scanning through a standard mirror is higher than that produced when using a high-quality mirror. However, both cases show that this introduced error is lower than the instrumental error. As a result, this study concludes that it is reasonable to use standard mirrors when scanning in similar conditions to this laboratory test.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of High-Quality and Common Commercial Mirrors for Scanning Close-Range Surfaces Using 3D Laser Scanners: A Laboratory Experiment

Riquelme

Mas

2017

Remote Sensing

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“…5-8 The current-generation sensor suite includes of a flash Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) 9 based Hazard Detection System (HDS), 10 a Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL), 11 and a long-range Laser Altimeter (LAlt). 12 These sensors and algorithms have been tested in dedicated labs, on specialized gantries, and within helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to evaluate performance, determine necessary revisions, and step toward next-generation implementations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preparation and Integration of ALHAT Precision Landing Technology for Morpheus Flight Testing

Carson

Trawny

Robertson

et al. 2014

AIAA SPACE 2014 Conference and Exposition

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The Autonomous precision Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) project has developed a suite of prototype sensors for enabling autonomous and safe precision landing of robotic or crewed vehicles on solid solar bodies under varying terrain lighting conditions. The sensors include a Lidar-based Hazard Detection System (HDS), a multipurpose Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL), and a long-range Laser Altimeter (LAlt). Preparation for terrestrial flight testing of ALHAT onboard the Morpheus free-flying, rocket-propelled flight test vehicle has been in progress since 2012, with flight tests over a lunar-like terrain field occurring in Spring 2014. Significant work efforts within both the ALHAT and Morpheus projects has been required in the preparation of the sensors, vehicle, and test facilities for interfacing, integrating and verifying overall system performance to ensure readiness for flight testing. The ALHAT sensors have undergone numerous stand-alone sensor tests, simulations, and calibrations, along with integrated-system tests in specialized gantries, trucks, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. A lunar-like terrain environment was constructed for ALHAT system testing during Morpheus flights, and vibration and thermal testing of the ALHAT sensors was performed based on Morpheus flights prior to ALHAT integration. High-fidelity simulations were implemented to gain insight into integrated ALHAT sensors and Morpheus GN&C system performance, and command and telemetry interfacing and functional testing was conducted once the ALHAT sensors and electronics were integrated onto Morpheus. This paper captures some of the details and lessons learned in the planning, preparation and integration of the individual ALHAT sensors, the vehicle, and the test environment that led up to the joint flight tests.

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“…Likewise, NASA proposed to develop the 3D Imaging Flash LiDAR system to hazard detection for future planetary landing missions (Amzajerdian et al, 2011). Based on active LiDAR methods, JPL utilized the method based on active LiDAR for the avoidance of obstacles .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation Experiment on Landing Site Selection Using a Simple Geometric Approach

Zhao

Tong

Xie

et al. 2017

Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.

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ABSTRACT:Safe landing is an important part of the planetary exploration mission. Even fine scale terrain hazards (such as rocks, small craters, steep slopes, which would not be accurately detected from orbital reconnaissance) could also pose a serious risk on planetary lander or rover and scientific instruments on-board it. In this paper, a simple geometric approach on planetary landing hazard detection and safe landing site selection is proposed. In order to achieve full implementation of this algorithm, two easy-to-compute metrics are presented for extracting the terrain slope and roughness information. Unlike conventional methods which must do the robust plane fitting and elevation interpolation for DEM generation, in this work, hazards is identified through the processing directly on LiDAR point cloud. For safe landing site selection, a Generalized Voronoi Diagram is constructed. Based on the idea of maximum empty circle, the safest landing site can be determined. In this algorithm, hazards are treated as general polygons, without special simplification (e.g. regarding hazards as discrete circles or ellipses). So using the aforementioned method to process hazards is more conforming to the real planetary exploration scenario. For validating the approach mentioned above, a simulated planetary terrain model was constructed using volcanic ash with rocks in indoor environment. A commercial laser scanner mounted on a rail was used to scan the terrain surface at different hanging positions. The results demonstrate that fairly hazard detection capability and reasonable site selection was obtained compared with conventional method, yet less computational time and less memory usage was consumed. Hence, it is a feasible candidate approach for future precision landing selection on planetary surface.

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Lidar systems for precision navigation and safe landing on planetary bodies

Cited by 66 publications

References 9 publications

Use of High-Quality and Common Commercial Mirrors for Scanning Close-Range Surfaces Using 3D Laser Scanners: A Laboratory Experiment

Use of High-Quality and Common Commercial Mirrors for Scanning Close-Range Surfaces Using 3D Laser Scanners: A Laboratory Experiment

Preparation and Integration of ALHAT Precision Landing Technology for Morpheus Flight Testing

Simulation Experiment on Landing Site Selection Using a Simple Geometric Approach

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