Remote attitude control using delayed visual information - Nemo HD case study

This work deals with the image-based attitude control of a satellite for remote sensing. A real Nemo HD satellite performance is simulated by the developed simulator to show feasibility of the proposed image based attitude control. This satellite is being built in a co-operation between Slovenian centre of excellence Space-SI and Space Flight Laboratory University of Toronto. The image-based control law using SIFT image features is applied to achieve an automatic reference-point observation on the Earth's surface. The presents image-based attitude control will be implemented in an experimental mode of the Nemo HD Earth observation satellite. This approach could be of great assistance to the operator on the ground station when steering the satellite camera to some target position using joystick. Operator only needs to fine tune the desired reference observation spot while the algorithm performs the majority of the control task.