Virtual simulator for testing a vision based pose estimation system for autonomous capture of satellites with interface rings

This paper describes the design and the performance of a virtual simulation environment to evaluate a machine vision based pose estimation system used for the general problem of satellite servicing. The vision system features a wide angle monocular camera to track the interface ring of a non-cooperative satellite using ellipse extraction. The effects of the camera parameters and of the relative camera-satellite position on the system accuracy are evaluated. Different parameters such as resolution, field of view angle, distortion, occlusions and errors in the intrinsic parameters are considered. The study reveals the importance of the availability of such a visual simulation environment for the purpose of mission planning.