Aug 25 2010
NASA is developing technologies to enable spacecraft to automatically identify a safe landing location and detect landing hazards. The Langley Research Center in Virginia has developed three LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensors that can offer the required data needed to attain autonomous precision landing. One of the sensors is a 3D active imaging system, known as flash LIDAR, which is used for identifying dangerous terrains and detecting safe landing locations.
The integrated lidar sensor suite was carried in a protective shell by a leased firefighting helicopter to the observation area.
The second sensor is a Doppler LIDAR device that is used for measuring the altitude and velocity of the vehicle, helping spacecrafts to land exactly at the chosen location. The third sensor is a laser altimeter, which offers data before the final approach for rectifying the trajectory of the flight towards the landing area.
The Jet Propulsion Lab of NASA, in combination with the LIDAR sensor development at the Langley Research Center, is developing mathematical procedures or algorithms to evaluate the 3D LIDAR maps and to determine the ideal landing location. The obtained data from Doppler LIDAR and the laser altimeter are used by navigation system, which was jointly developed by the Charles Draper Laboratory and the NASA Johnson Space Center, to control the vehicle to the chosen location.
The technologies have been incorporated with the Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology project of NASA. The technologies are being demonstrated in various flight tests.