Related papers: Intelligent Unmanned Explorer for Deep Space Explo…
Intelligent robot is the ultimate goal in the robotics field. Existing works leverage learning-based or optimization-based methods to accomplish human-defined tasks. However, the challenge of enabling robots to explore various environments…
A recently discovered group of nearby co-orbital objects is an attractive location for extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) to locate a probe to observe Earth while not being easily seen. These near-Earth objects provide an ideal way to…
Previous work in studying interstellar exploration by one or several probes has focused primarily either on engineering models for a spacecraft targeting a single star system, or large-scale simulations to ascertain the time required for a…
Small, low-size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions due to their affordability, attritability, and suitability for…
Comet Interceptor is an ESA science mission with payload contributions from ESA Member States and with an international participation by JAXA. It is the first mission that is being designed, built, and potentially launched before its target…
An unmanned autonomous vehicle (UAV) is sent on a mission to explore and reconstruct an unknown environment from a series of measurements collected by Bayesian optimization. The success of the mission is judged by the UAV's ability to…
The rapid advancement and miniaturization of spacecraft electronics, sensors, actuators, and power systems have resulted in growing proliferation of small-spacecraft. Coupled with this is the growing number of rocket launches, with…
The Global Exploration Roadmap indicates the need for increased human exploration of under-sampled regions of our solar system in order to make new scientific discoveries. The high costs and dangers of sending humans deeper into our solar…
Using a fully autonomous spacecraft - Bering - we propose to detect and study sub-km asteroids from an orbit within the asteroid Main Belt. The main purpose of the proposed Bering mission is to detect a statistically significant sample of…
Wheeled planetary rovers such as the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) have provided unprecedented, detailed images of the Mars surface. However, these rovers are large and are of high-cost as they need to…
With the real need of field exploration in large-scale and extreme outdoor environments, cooperative exploration tasks have garnered increasing attention. This paper presents a comprehensive review of multi-robot cooperative exploration…
Autonomous Science is a field of study which aims to extend the autonomy of exploration robots from low level functionality, such as on-board perception and obstacle avoidance, to science autonomy, which allows scientists to specify…
Two new interplanetary technologies have advanced in the past decade to the point where they may enable exciting, affordable missions that reach further and faster deep into the outer regions of our solar system: (i) small and capable…
In the recent past, a comprehensive experimental program has been worked out at the Mainz Energy-Recovery Superconducting Accelerator, MESA, at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Mainz. MESA is a high-intensity, low-energy electron…
This paper presents the design of a small aerial robot for inhabited microgravity environments, such as orbiting space stations (e.g., ISS). In particular, we target a fleet of robots, called Space CoBots, for collaborative tasks with…
The exploration of planetary surfaces is predominately unmanned, calling for a landing vehicle and an autonomous and/or teleoperated rover. Artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques can be leveraged for better mission…
Space Debris (SD) consist of non-operational artificial objects orbiting around the Earth, which could possibly damage space vehicles, such as the International Space Station (ISS) or other manned spacecrafts. The vast majority of such…
The goal of coordinated multi-robot exploration tasks is to employ a team of autonomous robots to explore an unknown environment as quickly as possible. Compared with human-designed methods, which began with heuristic and rule-based…
Our Robust, Explainable Autonomy for Scientific Icy Moon Operations (REASIMO) effort contributes to NASA's Concepts for Ocean worlds Life Detection Technology (COLDTech) program, which explores science platform technologies for ocean worlds…
In recent years, the technological improvements of low-cost small-scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are promoting an ever-increasing use of them in different tasks. In particular, the use of small-scale UAVs is useful in all these…