MER-DIMES: A Planetary Landing Application of Computer Vision

During the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) landings, the Descent Image Motion Estimation System (DIMES) was used for horizontal velocity estimation. The DIMES algorithm combines measurements from a descent camera, a radar altimeter and an inertial measurement unit. To deal with large changes in scale and orientation between descent images, the algorithm uses altitude and attitude measurements to rectify image data to level ground plane. Feature selection and tracking is employed in the rectified data to compute the horizontal motion between images. Differences of motion estimates are then compared to inertial measurements to verify correct feature tracking. DIMES combines sensor data from multiple sources in a novel way to create a low-cost, robust and computationally efficient velocity estimation solution, and DIMES is the first use of computer vision to control a spacecraft during planetary landing. In this paper, the detailed implementation of the DIMES algorithm and the results from...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: CVPR
• Authors: Yang Cheng, Andrew Edie Johnson, Larry Matthies
• Keywords: Computer Vision, CVPR 2005, Dimes Algorithm Combines, Efficient Velocity Estimation, Horizontal Velocity Estimation, Image Motion Estimation, Inertial Measurements