Modular pipeline for small bodies gravity field modeling: an efficient representation of variable density spherical harmonics coefficients

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Rizza, Antonio, Buonagura, Carmine, Panicucci, Paolo, Topputo, Francesco
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Rizza, Antonio
Buonagura, Carmine
Panicucci, Paolo
Topputo, Francesco
author_facet Rizza, Antonio
Buonagura, Carmine
Panicucci, Paolo
Topputo, Francesco
contents Proximity operations to small bodies, such as asteroids and comets, demand high levels of autonomy to achieve cost-effective, safe, and reliable Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) solutions. Enabling autonomous GNC capabilities in the vicinity of these targets is thus vital for future space applications. However, the highly non-linear and uncertain environment characterizing their vicinity poses unique challenges that need to be assessed to grant robustness against unknown shapes and gravity fields. In this paper, a pipeline designed to generate variable density gravity field models is proposed, allowing the generation of a coherent set of scenarios that can be used for design, validation, and testing of GNC algorithms. The proposed approach consists in processing a polyhedral shape model of the body with a given density distribution to compute the coefficients of the spherical harmonics expansion associated with the gravity field. To validate the approach, several comparison are conducted against analytical solutions, literature results, and higher fidelity models, across a diverse set of targets with varying morphological and physical properties. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the methodology, showing good performances in terms of modeling accuracy and computational efficiency. This research presents a faster and more robust framework for generating environmental models to be used in simulation and hardware-in-the-loop testing of onboard GNC algorithms.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_02531
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Modular pipeline for small bodies gravity field modeling: an efficient representation of variable density spherical harmonics coefficients
Rizza, Antonio
Buonagura, Carmine
Panicucci, Paolo
Topputo, Francesco
Robotics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Proximity operations to small bodies, such as asteroids and comets, demand high levels of autonomy to achieve cost-effective, safe, and reliable Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) solutions. Enabling autonomous GNC capabilities in the vicinity of these targets is thus vital for future space applications. However, the highly non-linear and uncertain environment characterizing their vicinity poses unique challenges that need to be assessed to grant robustness against unknown shapes and gravity fields. In this paper, a pipeline designed to generate variable density gravity field models is proposed, allowing the generation of a coherent set of scenarios that can be used for design, validation, and testing of GNC algorithms. The proposed approach consists in processing a polyhedral shape model of the body with a given density distribution to compute the coefficients of the spherical harmonics expansion associated with the gravity field. To validate the approach, several comparison are conducted against analytical solutions, literature results, and higher fidelity models, across a diverse set of targets with varying morphological and physical properties. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the methodology, showing good performances in terms of modeling accuracy and computational efficiency. This research presents a faster and more robust framework for generating environmental models to be used in simulation and hardware-in-the-loop testing of onboard GNC algorithms.
title Modular pipeline for small bodies gravity field modeling: an efficient representation of variable density spherical harmonics coefficients
topic Robotics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.02531