Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer
Lunar Localization System (LLS), Phase I
Project Description
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.
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Anticipated Benefits
A technology that augments a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) would find widespread commercial value. GNSS systems give intermittent, inaccurate or no service in places such as urban canyons, indoors, tunnels or remote regions. There already exist products that utilize terrestrial radiometry signals along with GNSS to provide a better service. However, further augmentation of vision based terrain matching or local radiometric readings would improve the accuracy of the GNSS system and allow it to work in remote areas as well. Also, the sub-modules of sensor fusion, terrain matching and fault context learning have commercial value of their own. Terrain matching based localization from vision on ground robots has tremendous applications in the robotics industry allowing for robots to better localize indoors enabling products in huge markets like civilian service robots with applications such as assistive robots in hospitals. NASA is poised towards missions increasing in frequency and complexity to Moon, Mars and to farther reaches of the solar system. The requirement for a localization system which allows for close to plug-and-play functionality for the sensors is important. The different types of mobile units on the lunar surface might each have unique sets of sensors. A modular system with proven capability will allow for widespread adapting of the technology allowing for a sustained funding and technology maturation. The multi-component localization system will allow the position estimates to be robust.
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Primary U.S. Work Locations and Key Partners
| Organizations Performing Work | Role | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| UtopiaCompression Corporation | Lead Organization | Industry | Los Angeles, California |
Johnson Space Center
(JSC)
|
Supporting Organization | NASA Center | Houston, Texas |
Primary U.S. Work Locations
-
California
-
Texas
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This is a historic project that was completed before the creation of TechPort on October 1, 2012. Available data has been included. This record may contain less data than currently active projects.