Image based control of a space surveillance robot

The paper deals with the image-based control of a space surveillance robot. The position of the robot is obtained by the Simplified General Perturbations model and its orientation by simulating its dynamic and kinematic models. For known position and orientation of the robot the images are obtained using Google Earth. The orientation of the robot is governed by reaction wheels which produce the required moments to the robot. The image based control law using image extraction features is applied to achieve automatic reference point observation on the Earth surface. Simulated experimental results with realistic assumptions are provided to demonstrate the operation of the proposed approach.