Event-Based Spacecraft Landing Using Time-To-Contact

Olaf Sikorski, Dario Izzo, Gabriele Meoni; Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) Workshops, 2021, pp. 1941-1950

We study event-based sensors in the context of spacecraft guidance and control during a descent on Moon-like terrains. For this purpose, we develop a simulator reproducing the event-based camera outputs when exposed to synthetic images of a space environment. We find that it is possible to reconstruct, in this context, the divergence of optical flow vectors (and therefore the time to contact) and use it in a simple control feedback scheme during simulated descents. The results obtained are very encouraging, albeit insufficient to meet the stringent safety constraints and modelling accuracy imposed upon space missions. We thus conclude by discussing future work aimed at addressing these limitations.