System and method for identifying and distinguishing spacecraft appendages from the spacecraft body

An apparatus for controlling docking with a spacecraft, comprising:

• at least one camera for generating at least one first image pixel stream of the spacecraft;
• a spectral camera for receiving a second pixel stream of images at multiple wavelengths;
• a field programmable gate array (FPGA) for receiving the at least one first image pixel stream from the at least one camera and the second pixel stream of images at multiple wavelength, the FPGA texture processing the at least one first image pixel stream to generate at least one texture map for the at least one image pixel stream and spectral image processing the second pixel stream to generate at least one spectral map;
• a processor for receiving the at least one texture map and the at least one spectral map from the FPGA, the processor further configured to:
• generate thresholding results for each of the at least one pixel image stream responsive to the generated at least one texture map and the at least one spectral map;
• fuse each of the thresholding results for the at least one pixel image stream and the second pixel stream to create fused thresholding results;
• determine a bus centroid of the spacecraft responsive to the generated fused thresholding results;
• output the determined bus centroid of the spacecraft;
• and
• a docking controller for controlling docking with the spacecraft responsive to the determined bus centroid of the spacecraft.

A method for controlling docking with a spacecraft, comprising:

• receiving a first pixel stream from a visible image camera;
• receiving a second pixel stream from an infrared image camera;
• receiving a third pixel stream of images at multiple wavelengths from a multi/hyperspectral camera;
• detecting a sub-region from the first, second, and third image pixel streams having a compressed dynamic range;
• rescaling an image from the first pixel stream and the third pixel stream from a first resolution to a second resolution;
• aligning rescaled pixels of the first pixel stream and the third pixel stream with infrared pixels of the second pixel stream;
• texture processing the rescaled and aligned first pixel stream to generate a first texture map for the first pixel stream;
• texture processing the second pixel stream to generate a second texture map for the second pixel stream;
• spectral image processing the rescaled and aligned third pixel stream to generate a spectral map for the third pixel stream;
• generating first thresholding results for the first pixel stream responsive to the generated first texture map and the generated spectral map;
• generating second thresholding results for the second pixel stream responsive to the generated second texture map and the generated spectral map;
• clustering and downsampling the generated first and second thresholding results;
• fusing the first thresholding results for the first pixel stream and the second thresholding results for the second pixel stream to create fused thresholding results;
• determining a bus centroid of the spacecraft responsive to the fused thresholding results;
• and
• controlling docking of with the spacecraft responsive to the determined bus centroid.