Science driven autonomous navigation for safe planetary pin-point landing

Abstract

Future exploration strategies plan to land both human and robotics landers in scientifically interesting zones, located prior to the mission, which often consist in inherently hazardous craterized and erosion-modeled landscapes. Because of interplanetary and reentry navigation errors, the position of the lander is not known precisely enough to guarantee a landing close to a scientific site. Thus, a geo-localized absolute navigation is added to enable the lander to assess its position with regards to these sites in real time during descent. Meanwhile, a hazard avoidance function determines the best landing site by taking into account various criteria: risks, slope, scientific interest, propellant needed, guidance constraints, Sun and Earth visibility etc. This paper will focus on geo-localized absolute navigation principles and on the development of a dynamic and adaptable multicriteria decision algorithm with a non-exhaustive search methodology to cope with stringent computational requirements.