Efficient and automatic image reduction framework for space debris detection based on GPU technology

In the last years, the increasing number of space debris has triggered the need of a distributed monitoring system for the prevention of possible space collisions. Space surveillance based on ground telescope allows the monitoring of the traffic of the Resident Space Objects (RSOs) in the Earth orbi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta astronautica 2018-04, Vol.145, p.332-341
Main Authors: Diprima, Francesco, Santoni, Fabio, Piergentili, Fabrizio, Fortunato, Vito, Abbattista, Cristoforo, Amoruso, Leonardo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Automated image analysis
Computing time
Data analysis
Detritus
Earth orbits
GPU
Graphics processing units
Hough transformation
Image detection
Image processing systems
Mathematical models
Monitoring
Object detection
Orbits
Satellite imagery
Satellite tracking
Satellites
Space debris
Space debris mitigation
Space surveillance
Traffic surveillance
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Summary:In the last years, the increasing number of space debris has triggered the need of a distributed monitoring system for the prevention of possible space collisions. Space surveillance based on ground telescope allows the monitoring of the traffic of the Resident Space Objects (RSOs) in the Earth orbit. This space debris surveillance has several applications such as orbit prediction and conjunction assessment. In this paper is proposed an optimized and performance-oriented pipeline for sources extraction intended to the automatic detection of space debris in optical data. The detection method is based on the morphological operations and Hough Transform for lines. Near real-time detection is obtained using General Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU). The high degree of processing parallelism provided by GPGPU allows to split data analysis over thousands of threads in order to process big datasets with a limited computational time. The implementation has been tested on a large and heterogeneous images data set, containing both imaging satellites from different orbit ranges and multiple observation modes (i.e. sidereal and object tracking). These images were taken during an observation campaign performed from the EQUO (EQUatorial Observatory) observatory settled at the Broglio Space Center (BSC) in Kenya, which is part of the ASI-Sapienza Agreement. •Space debris detection pipeline for space surveillance and tracking applications.•Automatic image analysis for objects detection based on optical data.•Efficient image processing techniques based on GPU technology.
ISSN:0094-5765
1879-2030
DOI:10.1016/j.actaastro.2018.02.009