AUTONOMOUS SMART LANDER SIMULATOR BASED ON STEREO VISION FOR THE DESCENT PHASE ON MARS

In this paper it will be presented the design and performances of a closed loop S/W simulator though for simulating the descent and landing phases of an autonomous Mars lander able to perform soft and safe landing on rough terrain by using a camera pair. The simulator architecture, its functionality and the simulation results obtained by performing landing on different terrain will be presented. In order to evaluate the capabilities of the Autopilot S/W a Mars terrain generator has been designed to create a realistic scene during the descent of the lander together at the software that simulates the vehicle, its dynamics and the Mars environment. It will be shown that the Autopilot works without using any special feature of the terrain, like craters, rocks or other landmarks for navigating. A single camera is used at high altitudes (the most part of the descent) while two cameras are used at lower ones, the advantage of using two cameras will be shown; this greatly improves the accuracy of the terrain reconstruction and the accuracy on the knowledge of the velocity Finally the simulation results will be discussed using the worst case method applied to the navigation parameters and the ability of the Autopilot to perform a safe landing.