KaNaRiA

KaNaRiA (from its German acronym: Kognitionsbasierte, autonome Navigation am Beispiel des Ressourcenabbaus im All) is a collaborative project of the University of Bremen (institute for computer graphics and virtual reality, institute for cognitive neuroinformatics, institute for optimisation and optimal control) and the Universität der Bundeswehr in Munich (institute of space systems and institute of space navigation ) financed by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR - Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt). The terrestrial follow-up project of KaNaRiA, AO-Car, researches novel autonomous car manoeuvres.

The extraction of asteroid resources is of high interest for a great number of upcoming deep space missions aiming at a combined industrial, commercial and scientific utilization of space. One main technological enabler or mission concepts in deep space is on-board autonomy. Such mission concepts generally include long cruise phases, multi-body fly-bys, planetary approach and rendezvous, orbiting in a-priori unknown dynamic environments, controlled descent, surface navigation and precise soft landing, docking or impacting.

Kooperationspartner

The project comprises two major goals:

In summary, our features for the KaNaRiA are:

Related Publications

Invited Talks

Videos

Our KaNaRiA image movie, illustrating the
main concepts of the KaNaRiA projects.
Our visualization of the used
particle filter for spacecraft localization.

Our visualization of the asteroid main belt
and the corresponding cruise phase
operations: optimal trajectories are flown
by the spacecraft.
Our visualization of the asteroid main belt
and the corresponding cruise phase
operations, showcasing the rendering of
200,000 asteroids.

Proximity phase operations: visualizing the
SLAM approach from the
institute for cognitive neuroinformatics.
Our demo overview of the
PTCM spacecraft concept, done by the
Universität der Bundeswehr München.

Our artistic visualization of the ReDoLa
landing sequence.
Our procedurally generated asteroids
for arbitrary simulation purposes.

Using our procedurally generated
asteroids, camera images for
asteroid approaches can
be synthesized (close approach).
Using our procedurally generated
asteroids, camera images for
asteroid approaches can
be synthesized (far approach).

Using our procedurally generated
asteroids, camera image for
asteroid approaches can
be synthesized (proximity).
Early demo of the cruise phase, illustrating
optimal trajectory computation and
spacecraft localization

Images

ptcm itokawa
Our artistically enhanced PTCM model (left) based on the original design. Our artistically enhanced Itokawa model. The model is based on the original Itokawa data.

spherepacking spconcept
Itokawa sphere packing for gravity computation and material distribution of asteroids. Illustration of our sphere-packing concept: arbitrary mass distributions can be approximated with uniform spheres each with different masses.
procasteroids
Procedurally generated look-alike asteroids by our approach. On the left, the synthesized replicas can be seen, on the right are the original models

spherepacking spconcept
Rendering of 200,000 asteroids in the cruise phase

spherepacking spconcept
Illustration of the proximity operations, the flown trajectory
is shown in green.
Visualizing lidar measurements (reds) in the
proximity operation simulation.

spherepacking spconcept
Visualizing surface landmarks (light blue) and lidar
measurements (red) in the proximity operation simulation.
Visualizing the uncertainty of the spacecraft SLAM approach
as a transparent sphere.

Related theses