Centralized Autonomous Relative Navigation of Multiple Spacecraft Around Small Bodies

This paper presents an on-board, centralized autonomous navigation algorithm able to reconstruct the trajectories of a fleet of CubeSats relative to an asteroid binary system. The algorithm is executed on-board the main spacecraft, which takes relative measurements using a narrow optical camera and an additional relative measurement, being inter satellite ranging in this paper. The image processing algorithm detects and tracks the CubeSats, deriving line-of-sight measurements. A non-linear estimation filter is employed to reconstruct the trajectory. The algorithm is tested using high-fidelity trajectory simulator and synthetic images generation routines.