TARGET RELATIVE NAVIGATION PERFORMANCE RESULTS FROM SINPLEX: A MINIATURIZED NAVIGATION SYSTEM

Abstract

The goal of the SINPLEX project is to develop an innovative solution to significantly reduce the mass of the navigation subsystem for exploration missions which include landing and/or rendezvous and capture phases. The system mass is reduced by functionally integrating the navigation sensors, using micro- and nanotechnology to miniaturize electronics and fusing the sensor data within a navigation filter to improve navigation performance. A breadboard system was built and includes a navigation computer, IMU, laser altimeter/range finder, star tracker and navigation camera. This system was tested at short distances with realistic trajectories in DLR’s TRON testbench. This paper covers an overview of the hardware and testbench and presents performance results from the hardware-in-the-loop tests.