A Visual Servo System for Robotic on-Orbit Servicing Based on 3D Perception of Non-Cooperative Satellite

Abstract

The 3D perception of satellites, including both their shape and pose, is a key foundation for robotic on-orbit servicing. However, the demanding space environment-such as intense and dim illumination-presents significant challenges. Previous non-cooperative methods focus on specific geometric features like solar panel brackets or docking rings, overlooking the satellite's overall shape and increasing the risk of collisions during grasping. Additionally, satellites are often weakly textured, limiting the accuracy of 3D perception. To address these issues, we propose, for the first time, a 3D perceptionbased visual servo system of non-cooperative satellites. This system combines reconstruction and tracking to enhance shape perception and pose estimation accuracy in orbital conditions. Specifically, we employ an alternating iterative strategy to simultaneously reconstruct and track the satellite and introduce a novel constraint to fuse different cues under extreme conditions. Further, we develop a simulation environment platform, a dualarm microgravity grasping system, and an online monitoring module to enhance system capabilities for on-orbit servicing. Synthetic and real-world datasets from the simulation environment are also created for experimental validation. Results show that each module of our system achieves state-of-the-art performance.