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Landing site topographic mapping and rover localization for Chang’e-4 mission

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Abstract

This paper presents the techniques and results of landing-site topographic mapping and rover localization using orbital, descent and rover images in the Chang’e-4 mission. High-resolution maps of the landing site are generated from orbital and descent images. Local digital elevation models and digital orthophoto maps with 0.02 m resolution are generated at each waypoint. The location of the lander is determined as (177.588° E, 45.457° S) using festure-matching techniques. The cross-site visual localization method is routinely used to localize the rover at each waypoint to reduce error accumulation from wheel slippage and IMU drift in dead reckoning. After the first five lunar days, the rover travels 186.66 m from the lander, according to the cross-site visual localization. The developed methods and results have been directly utilized to support the mission’s operations. The maps and localization information are also valuable for supporting multiple scientific explorations of the landing site.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDPB11), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41671458, 41590851, 41941003). We thank the Lunar and Deep Space Exploration Science Applications Center of the National Astronomical Observatory for providing the Pancam images and VNIS data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Zhaoqin Liu, Kaichang Di, Wenhui Wan, Man Peng, Bin Liu, Yexin Wang, Sheng Gou, Zongyu Yue, Xin Xin, Mengna Jia, Zheng Bo, Jia Liu, Runzhi Wang & Shengli Niu

  2. Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC), Beijing, 100094, China

    Jian Li, Jianfeng Xie, Xiaofeng Cui, Luhua Xi, Tianyi Yu, Lichun Li, Jia Wang, Chuankai Liu, Kuan Zhang, Yi You, Bing Liu & Jiangang Liu

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  1. Zhaoqin Liu
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  2. Kaichang Di
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  3. Jian Li
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  4. Jianfeng Xie
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  20. Jia Liu
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  22. Shengli Niu
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  25. Bing Liu
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Correspondence to Kaichang Di.

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Liu, Z., Di, K., Li, J. et al. Landing site topographic mapping and rover localization for Chang’e-4 mission. Sci. China Inf. Sci. 63, 140901 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-019-2796-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-019-2796-1

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