LITPHAM: Low Illumination Planetary Hazard Avoidance and Mapping

NASA and the National Research Council (NRC) have maintained precision landing and hazard detection/avoidance (PL&HA) as a critical space technology required for robotic science and human exploration operations to locations with unknown or hazardous terrain. Current sensing and navigation systems are not mature enough to consistently enable reliable operations in hazardous environments, and SWaP-C gaps in state-of-art PL&HA preclude advancement of the technology by new commercial lander companies. LITPHAM will bridge the SWaP-C gap and will be a standalone 3D terrain mapping sensor capable of operating in any illumination condition. Furthermore, LITPHAM can be generalized to any mission, vehicle configuration, and concept of operations.

NASA has indicated the need to bridge the Size, Weight, Power, and Cost (SWaP-C) gap for commercial planetary exploration missions requiring onboard hazard detection technology. Thus, LITPHAM would be useful for: ● Small-class commercial landers operating in low-illumination conditions ● Planetary exploration robots (rovers, UAVs, etc.) LITPHAM, by design, is intended to enter the commercial lander hardware market—but there is a greater commercial opportunity in the DEM-generation part of the solution. The DEM-generation sector has broad applications in the general use for topographic parameterization. This includes erosion and drainage analyses, hill-slope hydrology, watersheds, groundwater flow and contaminant transport studies. One of the most interesting applications for LITPHAM, however, is commercial robotic simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). SLAM is most often used for mapping of caves, mines, and other enclosed areas. Thanks to the low-light conditions LITPHAM was designed to address, mine and cave exploration as well as search and rescue activities could benefit from this project. In underground coal mines, exposed surfaces and walls have very low reflectance. Adding this to the texture-less environment and locally similar structure, the combination creates localizability issues along with severe sensor degradation. Some researchers have designed solutions to tackle this problem, including a multi‑modal unit that incorporates a visible light camera with inertial sensors as well as bright LEDs that flash only when the shutter opens. Other researchers have developed a system that integrates this multi‑modal system with a set of associated fusion algorithms that enable SLAM and the mapping of visually degraded environments in an underground mine. These solutions are generally not low SWaP-C however, and LITPHAM could bridge the gap in this terrestrial domain.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 2) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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