Abstract: An apparatus for controlling docking with a spacecraft includes at least one camera for generating at least one image pixel stream of the spacecraft. A field programmable gate array (FPGA) receives the at least one image pixel stream from the at least one camera, compresses a dynamic range of the at least one image pixel stream and detects a sub-region from the at least one image pixel stream having a compressed dynamic range, processes the at least one image pixel stream to generate at least one texture map for the at least one image pixel stream.

Abstract: An apparatus for controlling docking with a spacecraft includes at least one camera for generating at least one image pixel stream of the spacecraft. A field programmable gate array (FPGA) receives the at least one image pixel stream from the at least one camera. The FPGA texture processes the at least one pixel stream to generate at least one texture map for the at least one image pixel stream. A processor receives the at least one texture map from the FPGA and calculates texture map statistics responsive to the generated at least one texture map, generates thresholding results for the at least one pixel image stream responsive to the generated at least one texture map, determines a bus centroid of the spacecraft responsive to the generated thresholding results and outputs the determined bus centroid of the spacecraft. A docking controller controls docking of with the spacecraft responsive to the determined bus centroid of the spacecraft.