Lunar Localization System (LLS), Phase I

In support of NASA's vision for space, the goal of this project is to research and prototype a multi-component localization system which uses radiometry and vision for global pose estimation in Selenographic coordinates. The radiometry based pose localization alone will exhaustively study the combination of satellite networks and terrestrial networks to extract the maximal information for the purpose of localization. The vision system will use terrain matching allowing for a global pose estimation capability independent of external infrastructure like satellites or beacons. The overall system will allow low level information exchange between radiometry and vision and provide fault tolerance to remove the influence of faulty sensor data. The proposal aims to create a component based end-to-end plug-and-play architecture which looks at the minutiae of a localization module to create a rugged technology upon which other systems like navigation can be built. More »