A multi sensor based integrated navigation for pin-point landing on mars

Pin-point landing is one of the key technologies for the future Mars landing explorations. However, the traditional navigation system in the powered descent phase has no capability to fulfill the precise landing on Mars. A novel integrated navigation scheme based on multiple sensors for Mars powered descent phase is proposed in this paper. In the scenario, three artificial beacons were located on the Mars surface before the landing mission. In order to achieve an optimal position determination capability, the locations of beacons are optimized based on the observability analysis using Fisher information matrix. During the powered descent phase, the measurements of integrated radar sensor, artificial beacons, and navigation camera are integrated with the inertial measurement unit to determine the lander’s position, velocity, and attitude simultaneously. Furthermore, two navigation modes without considering and considering the beacon location uncertainty are then developed. Comprehensive simulations of Mars powered descent phase demonstrate the accuracy and feasibility of proposed navigation scheme. Simulation results imply that the navigation scheme considering the beacon location uncertainty can improves the accuracy and robustness greatly compared to dead reckoning navigation and Terminal Descent Sensor based navigation, which may satisfy the requirement of future pin-point landing missions.