ESA GNC Conference Papers Repository

The paper presents the first results of the tests campaign achieved by Thales Alenia Space in the frame of the HARVD activity under ESA coordination. The HARVD activity leads to the development of a highly autonomous on-board S/W demonstrator in charge to achieve docking or capture starting from long range initial conditions. Three validations steps are foreseen [1]: the Functional Engineering Simulator (full simulation under Matlab/Simulink/Stateflow), the Real-Time Test Bench (Autocoded software demonstrator on a Leon processor board), and the Dynamics test bench (6 dof robotic arm mounted on a one dimensional linear track). The paper focuses on the first validation step: the definition and the implementation of the rendezvous control system in the Functional Engineering Simulator followed by the validation of its performances (cf. Fig. 1). The two other validation steps are under GMV responsibility and are expected to run mid-2009. The industrial team for the Functional Engineering Simulator development is: Thales Alenia Space for the Real World, the Control, the Autonomous Mission Management and the Failure Detection Isolation and Recovery, GMV for the Guidance and the Navigation, Jena Optronik for the LIDAR model, and DTU for the Camera model. Additionally Thales Alenia Space is in charge of the overall integration and tests campaigns on the simulator, while GMV as prime contractor is responsible of the whole project management.