Robotic vision/Sensing for space applications

In the past decade, vision/sensing systems techniques have received significant attention for applications in robotics and automation. The thrust of automation and robotics for space applications has been proposed for increased productivity, improved reliability, increased flexibility, higher safety, and for the performance of tasks unsuited to humans. These benefits can be insured through automating time-consuming tasks, increasing productivity/performance of crew-accomplished tasks, and performing tasks beyond the capability of the crew. This paper provides a review of efforts currently in progress at the NASA/Johnson Space Center and at Rice University, the accomplishments to date, and some of the anticipated future developments. Both systems and algorithms are discussed. The evolution of future vision/sensing is projected to include the fusion of multisensors ranging from microwave to optical with multimode capability to include position, attitude, recognition, and motion parameters. The algorithms for information extraction would incorporate aspects of intelligence and knowledge for the interpolation and extrapolation of the needed data. The key features of the overall system design will be small size and weight, fast signal processing, robust algorithms, and accurate parameter determination. These aspects of vision sensing will also be discussed in this paper.