CEAS EuroGNC 2026 Conference on Guidance, Navigation & Control>
Distributed Navigation Architecture for Close-Range Target Inspection
Matteo Capitanio  1, *@  , Michele Maestrini  1@  , Mauro Massari  1@  
1 : Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Aerospaziali [Milano]
* : Corresponding author

A significant fraction of Resident Space Objects, such as orbital debris or damaged satellites, are uncooperative and insufficiently known, thus requiring in-orbit inspection for applications ranging from debris mitigation to in-orbit servicing. In this context, Distributed Space Systems represent a promising solution, as they combine scalability, robustness to single-agent failures, availability of multi-view observations, and a more efficient use of time and resources. Specifically, this work presents a preliminary analysis of a distributed navigation architecture in a Low-Earth Orbit scenario, where two cooperative chasers, each equipped only with a monocular camera, collaborate to inspect a large uncooperative target. The primary chaser employs an Extended Kalman Filter in combination with its Multiplicative variant to estimate its relative position, velocity, orientation, and angular velocity with respect to the target object. However, due to the monocular camera's intrinsic limitations, the primary chaser alone would not achieve sufficiently accurate relative navigation in the close-range regime without the support of additional sensing. To address this, the secondary chaser, orbiting at a larger distance, provides complementary measurements which are incorporated in the filtering process: the primary inspector reconstructs the secondary's observations as a function of its current estimates, assuming that only the target's shape and inertial properties are known. Data exchange is enabled via Inter-Satellite Link technology, while differential carrier-phase measurements provide the relative position between the two chasers. Preliminary results show that this cooperative scheme effectively overcomes the limitations of monocular vision in close-range operations and enables the primary chaser to maintain accurate navigation during high-resolution inspection of the target.


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