LandingNav: Terrain Guided Automated Precision Landing

The purpose of the proposed effort is to provide a novel and innovative precision landing sensor (LandingNav) for Mars. LandingNav supports space exploration by significantly enhancing real-time landmark recognition and navigation capabilities, thus substantially improving the Mars landing accuracy. The LandingNav system integrates two novel technologies. The first is a unique feature detection method based on edge detection and the Hough transform coupled with motion stereo and stereo correlation. The second is a novel multi-resolution learning algorithm for highly efficient terrain mapping. Together these innovations enable high-fidelity system-level landmark navigation solutions for the precision landing problem. This technology has a broad operational range and can be used for high-altitude navigation as well as terminal navigation (i.e., landing hazards avoidance). This proposal focuses on demonstrating, through analysis, simulation, and design, the applicability and feasibility of this particular terrain navigation technology for space exploration. Successful completion of the proposed Phase I effort will permit a Phase II effort to produce a functional prototype to demonstrate the increased landing precision and feature detection performance.