METHOD FOR DETECTING AND AUTONOMOUSLY TRACKING A TARGET OBJECT BY MEANS OF A LIDAR SENSOR

摘要

The invention relates to a method for detecting and autonomously tracking atarget object, inparticular a non-cooperative spacecraft, by means of a LIDAR sensor, whereinthe LIDARsensor continuously emits laser pulses onto the target object across apredeterminedsurface area and generates a 3D point cloud from measurement points reflectedby thetarget objects at predetermined time intervals, and a current relativeposition of the targetobject relative to the LIDAR sensor is calculated for six degrees of freedomof movement ofthe target object at the predetermined time intervals on the basis ofalgorithms estimating theposition. In order to be able to expand the detection range of target objectsto greaterdistances, in a first step, a high-resolution initializing point cloudacquired over a plurality ofpredetermined time intervals is acquired, in a second step, a reference modelwith a smallnumber of measurement points is generated from the initializing point cloud,and, insubsequent iterative steps and at the given time intervals, temporal positionclouds aredetermined and compared with the reference model using the algorithms andpositioninformation of the target object is calculated, wherein the reference model iscontinuouslyadapted to the changes in the point clouds.