Design and performance assessment of hazard avoidance techniques for vision-based landing

Hazard avoidance (HA) is a key technology for a safe landing of future planetary landing missions. During HA, sensors and computers onboard the lander are used to detect hazards in the landing zone, autonomously select the most suitable region for landing, and generate the trajectory that retargets the lander to the safer landing site (LS). In this paper, algorithms are described for vision-based hazard detection, safe site selection, and powered landing guidance designed for landing in planets without atmosphere. The algorithms are validated in a realistic simulated scenario representing a landing on Mercury. Results show that the developed HA algorithms are effective at detecting hazards and guiding the lander to a safe LS.