ACTIVE TERRAIN RELATIVE NAVIGATION FOR LUNAR LANDINGS

Landing on a planetary body is an important part of space exploration. Precision landing capability enables a pin-point touchdown on the planet surface to con- duct scientific exploration. Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN) is an autonomous navigation technique to achieve precision landing. A Camera-based Passive TRN system has been proven successful in the Mars 2020 mission. However for un- illuminated locations, Active TRN is needed to achieve precision landing. In this paper, the performance of a lidar-based Active TRN concept for lunar landing is investigated using numerical simulations and publicly available altimetry data.