The STC also has the facilities and capabilities for the design and testing of image processing chips for vision-based navigation. This type of chip is used with a camera on a spacecraft looking at the body on which landing is to take place. The camera provides a stream of images to the image processing chip. The chip identifies notable features in the images and tracks there position in the image from one frame to the next. The movement of the features in the images is combined with information from the spacecraft inertial measurement unit (accelerometers and gyroscopes) to determine relative position of the spacecraft and the body on which it is to land. Dundee has provided image processing designs to ADS-F and –D, TAS-I, and to GMV in Spain as part of their work for ESA on vision-based navigation for planetary landers.
