Feature-aided pose estimation approach based on variational auto-encoder structure for spacecrafts

Real-time 6 Degree-of-Freedom(DoF)pose estimation is of paramount importance for various on-orbit tasks.Benefiting from the development of deep learning,Convolutional Neural Networks(CNNs)in feature extraction has yielded impressive achievements for spacecraft pose estimation.To improve the robustness and interpretability of CNNs,this paper proposes a Pose Estimation approach based on Variational Auto-Encoder structure(PE-VAE)and a Feature-Aided pose estimation approach based on Variational Auto-Encoder structure(FA-VAE),which aim to accurately estimate the 6 DoF pose of a target spacecraft.Both methods treat the pose vector as latent variables,employing an encoder-decoder network with a Variational Auto-Encoder(VAE)structure.To enhance the precision of pose estimation,PE-VAE uses the VAE structure to introduce reconstruction mechanism with the whole image.Furthermore,FA-VAE enforces feature shape constraints by exclusively reconstructing the segment of the target spacecraft with the desired shape.Comparative evaluation against leading methods on public datasets reveals similar accuracy with a threefold improvement in processing speed,showcasing the significant contribution of VAE structures to accuracy enhancement,and the additional benefit of incorporating global shape prior features.