The Vision-Based Terrain Navigation Facility: A Technological Overview

The VTNF (Vision-based Terrain Navigation Facility) is an innovative platform designed as a test bed for studying open issues related to the navigation of a planetary lander in its Entry-Descent-Landing (EDL) phase.The facilitymakes available a safe indoor flight volume, fully tracked by infrared cameras, an autonomous quadrotor equipped with a camera and a diorama representing a portion of Martian surface. The quadrotor is used to trigger pictures of the diorama from coordinates that are scaled according to a virtual mission in its EDL phase, simulated on a dedicated workstation. The pictures are then processed to provide information about the presence of particular geological features (craters, canyons, hills . . . ) and to estimate an hazard-free descent trajectory. This article offers an overview of the design solutions implemented in the facility, both from the hardware and from the software/control point of view.