On-board space debris recognition and accurate positioning method

A method of detecting and recognizing space debris based on visible light camera and laser range finder was proposed in this paper. The shape of imaging was determined by the relative velocity, and distance of space debris. In order to matching different images, an ellipse that had the same second-order central moment was adopted to describe the edge of image. Based on the features of ellipse, the rules of matching images will be established. By matching different images, the coordinate and azimuth angles can be calculated. If only the azimuth angles were available, the relative position-velocity filter was used for guiding the laser range finder. When the laser range finder worked properly, the extend-Kalman filter was used for getting accurate movement information of the target.