A general visual-servoing control strategy for active non-cooperative target tracking of space manipulators

Non-cooperative target tracking plays an important role in many space missions. Recent studies on non-cooperative target tracking are mostly concentrated in the field of passive target tracking. Passive non-cooperative target tracking can effectively be used in the initial phases of a close-range rendezvous manoeuvre. Instead, during the terminal phases of such manoeuvres, active object tracking(AOT) techniques are more convenient. This study propose a general visual servo strategy for the active non-cooperative target tracking of space manipulator. Our proposed method do not need any a priori information about the targets and can be used for space manipulators of any configuration and binocular cameras of any types. Our strategy includes a real-time and accurate position estimation algorithm for non-cooperative targets and a motion planning algorithm combined Position-based visual servo(PBVS) and Image-based visual servo(IBVS). The experiment verified that the proposed strategy well solved the active non-cooperative target tracking task and can be used as a baseline for solving such tracking problems which provides a reference for subsequent studies.