Laser Based Rendezvous Sensors in Test on the European Proximity Operations Simulator

Abstract

The European Proximity Operations Simulator (EPOS) is a common development by the European Space Agency (ESA) and DLR in context with the HERMES/COLUMBUS programmes. Main design driver is the real time/real size H/W-in-the-loop simulation of automated rendezvous and docking (RVD) operations under the impact of real motion and sun illumination effects. At DLR a prototype configuration has been established which was used for testing RVD sensors of different suppliers within ESA RVD proof-of-concept programme. The sensor H/W in its current development state of "elegant breadboards" is typically composed of the sensor head and a preprocessor, a corresponding target pattern and a postprocessor. The preprocessor generates the measurement data from the sensor head output, while the postprocessor computes the relative motion state between chaser and target. This motion state measurement is logged by the EPOS data processing system and can be evaluated against measurements of the EPOS built-in measurement system. Tests were carried out in a series of approximately 400 tests. After each test run a data inspection of the test results was done to verify proper EPOS performance. The experiences with the EPOS prototype during the tests are used to improve the performance of the final implementation.