Feature-based estimation of space debris angular rate via compressed sensing and Kalman filtering

A method for evaluating attitude and measuring angular rate of uncontrolled bodies in space, such as space debris, has been developed. The measurement can be obtained by elaborating data coming from tracking few natural features of the objects. Tracking can be pursued for instance through a chaser spacecraft equipped with 3D-cameras. Continuous quaternion time series are obtained via compressed sensing (CS) techniques while a linear Kalman filter (KF) is used to estimate the angular rate. The developed method is robust to typical occlusions of cameras in space environment. © 2016 IEEE.