Thermal imager-based computer vision for autonomous rendezvous and docking

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Autonomous rendezvous and docking (AR&D) in space is widely recognized as an important technological capability that enables various missions. However, the most previous AR&D missions dealt with cooperative spacecraft, i.e. spacecraft equipped with known visual markers. This greatly facilitated real-time motion estimation process; one of the key enabling-technologies for AR&D that calculates, in real-time, the relative motion between the chaser and the target spacecraft. However, upcoming AR&D missions in space will involve noncooperative targets, i.e., spacecraft with no visual markers that can be detected by the computer vision system to determine the relative motion.