Need to identify an object in outer space? Rogue is building a sensor for that

GILFORD — A color camera and light detection technology could soon help identify objects in space. At least that's the hope of Rogue Space Systems, based in Gilford, whose team is in the testing phase of a new technology: 3D Resident Object in Space Inspection, or 3DROSI.

Rogue co-founder Michael Pica explained the technology's practical use.

“The idea is that if we have an object in space, we can use this, plus our algorithms that we're developing — the real part of this project — to characterize what that thing is.”

Rogue employees performed a test of 3DROSI on Jan. 15 at the Gilford Youth Center. A computer system attached to a camera and infrared sensor technology was rolled out onto the gym floor, facing a mock space satellite on a rotating tripod. 3DROSI uses a color camera and light detection and ranging, or LiDAR, technology to create safe close-proximity operations in space.

The camera and sensors are not inventive technology. Catherine Collins, director of research and development, explained what Rogue's team, led by Alexander Kuyper, principal investigator and sensor fusion engineer, is providing in the advancement of the technology.

“We're not the builders of the sensors themselves. This has been the algorithms behind it, how Alex and the team have been able to refine the technology to fuse both the LiDAR and the imaging data together to create what's called a point cloud.”

Infrared lasers, invisible to the human eye, shoot into wide array, bouncing off objects in the environment, and data is read by the sensors. A point cloud is a highly detailed 3D image created by all points from the lasers, to show how something is moving and its position relative to the sensor. Pica gave an example of its use in space.

“A good application could be space debris. Let's say you have a satellite that malfunctioned, or there's been cases where a battery exploded, and you want to remove that debris from space in order to capture it. You kind of need to understand what shape it's in, and where a safe place to grab would be,” Pica said. “This technology would allow us to do that.”

Similar technology is already in use in autonomous vehicles. Many cars now use it for adaptive speed controls, like cruise control, allowing a car to slow down or speed up based on the speed of the vehicle in front of it, and for emergency braking. Pica said Uber uses the LiDAR system for their autonomous cars. Tesla uses cameras only due to cost, and the company's engineers believe LiDAR is unnecessary for cars. Company staff want self-driving systems to replicate human vision as closely as possible. Pica thinks an all-camera system is not sufficient.

“The problem with cameras is you're beholden to the lighting and the environment around you. If you're trying to drive at night, cameras can only see what your headlights are illuminating; where this LiDAR technology is providing its own light that's getting reflected back,” he said. “It's outside of our visual spectrum, but if we could see infrared, we would see lasers shooting out of these devices.”

LiDAR can more accurately measure distances to objects than human vision, and its 3D model is more useful than a camera’s 2D image. Jon Beam, Rogue co-founder and chief executive officer, said it's hard to transfer large amounts of information from space. But the point cloud, also known as a 3D mesh model, is able to compress information, which makes communication much easier.

“It's difficult to get full color, like hi-def video data. It's hard to get that down to the ground,” Beam said.

"If you have a mesh model, it just highly compresses all that information.”

This technology is one of six projects Rogue is working on for what they call an orbital robot. The robot will be the hardware to perform the tasks intended for use by the sensor system. But things like the cold temperatures of space and the highly radiative environment make it difficult to properly house the technology safely. Beam said this technology has never been used in space due to safety concerns. He considers it a chicken-and-egg scenario.

“It just hasn't been done before, so it wasn't considered safe. The reason it wasn't considered safe was because this didn't exist, so sort of our chicken-egg type of thing,” Beam said. “This type of technology, this perceptual awareness system, it'll become more commonplace, that I think, close-proximity missions will be more commonplace.”

When asked whether this robot could be used for gathering items like rocks from the moon, or Mars, Pica said it’s not impossible, but difficult.

“From a software standpoint, there's no reason this technology couldn't be adapted to those uses. But from a hardware standpoint, is more challenges.”

Rogue's technology is still in early development. Rogue is receiving funding from government programs like Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer. Small Business Innovation Research is a group of government agencies that have helped fund 4,000 companies per year, with $4 billion each year in investments, with 0% equity or ownership from the federal government. Rogue has also received a National Science Fund Grant. Most of their contracts come from the Air Force or Space Force, and they also have earned one through NASA.

Rogue has been developing technologies for about five years, and their Lakes Region location shows that with the right team and dedication, companies can be successful anywhere.

“Here we are in sleepy New Hampshire, and just ended up because Mike and the other two founders were here in New Hampshire,” Collins said. “They got together, and had a good idea.”

Clarification: This article has been updated to clarify Rogue Space Systems' project funding sources.