Tracking Particles Ejected From Active Asteroid Bennu With Event-Based Vision
Lo\"ic J. Azzalini, Dario Izzo

TL;DR
This paper introduces an event-based vision approach for detecting and tracking small particles ejected from asteroid Bennu, enhancing spacecraft safety and scientific observation capabilities during small body missions.
Contribution
It proposes a novel event-based detection and tracking method for centimetre-sized particles, demonstrated through simulation of OSIRIS-REx observations, improving real-time tracking in space missions.
Findings
Event-based cameras provide high dynamic range and temporal resolution for space particle detection.
Simulated event data supports development of future multi-object tracking algorithms.
Method enhances onboard detection capabilities for small ejecta particles.
Abstract
Early detection and tracking of ejecta in the vicinity of small solar system bodies is crucial to guarantee spacecraft safety and support scientific observation. During the visit of active asteroid Bennu, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft relied on the analysis of images captured by onboard navigation cameras to detect particle ejection events, which ultimately became one of the mission's scientific highlights. To increase the scientific return of similar time-constrained missions, this work proposes an event-based solution that is dedicated to the detection and tracking of centimetre-sized particles. Unlike a standard frame-based camera, the pixels of an event-based camera independently trigger events indicating whether the scene brightness has increased or decreased at that time and location in the sensor plane. As a result of the sparse and asynchronous spatiotemporal output, event cameras…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAstro and Planetary Science · Space Satellite Systems and Control · CCD and CMOS Imaging Sensors
