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Field-based reactive control provides a minimalist, decentralized route to guiding robots that lack onboard computation. Such schemes are well suited to resource-limited machines like microrobots, yet implementation artifacts, limited…
Astrophysics and cosmology are rich with data. The advent of wide-area digital cameras on large aperture telescopes has led to ever more ambitious surveys of the sky. Data volumes of entire surveys a decade ago can now be acquired in a…
The advent of the Virtual Observatory (VO) concept signals a pradigm shift in the way astronomy will be done in the era of information abundance and ubiquitous networking. Small telescopes will be playing a number of essential roles in this…
In spite of great progress over the last $\sim 10$ years, especially thanks to HST, a number of exciting open problem still puzzle astronomers working on globular clusters in our own and other galaxies. These problems range from determining…
As Multi-Robot Systems (MRS) become more affordable and computing capabilities grow, they provide significant advantages for complex applications such as environmental monitoring, underwater inspections, or space exploration. However,…
Radio astronomy has benefited greatly from advances in technology and will continue to do so in the future. In fact, we are experiencing a revolution in the way radio astronomy is conducted as our instruments allow us now to directly…
The recent explosive growth of small satellite operations driven primarily from an academic or pedagogical need, has demonstrated the viability of commercial-off-the-shelf technologies in space. They have also leveraged and shown the need…
Solar sails enable missions to observe the solar environment from unique vantage points, such as sustained observations away from the Sun-Earth line; sub-L1 station keeping; high inclination solar orbits; Earth polar-sitting and…
The successes of previous and current Mars rovers have encouraged space agencies worldwide to pursue additional planetary exploration missions with more ambitious navigation goals. For example, NASA's planned Mars Sample Return mission will…
Active optics is defined as the control of the shape and the alignment of the components of an optical system at low temporal frequencies. For modern large telescopes with flexible monolithic or segmented primary mirrors and also flexible…
Having driven a large part of the decade's progress in physics, nanoelectronics is now passing from today's realm of the extraordinary to tomorrow's commonplace. This carries the problem of turning proofs of concept into practical…
Cosmology contributes a good deal to the investigation of variation of fundamental physical constants. High resolution data is available and allows for detailed analysis over cosmological distances and a multitude of methods were developed.…
Building and maintaining a space object catalog is necessary for space situational awareness. To realize this, one great challenge is uncooperative spacecraft maneuver detection because unknown maneuver events can lead to deviated orbital…
Light from astronomical objects must travel through the earth's turbulent atmosphere before it can be imaged by ground-based telescopes. To enable direct imaging at maximum theoretical angular resolution, advanced techniques such as those…
Wide-angle surveys have been an engine for new discoveries throughout the modern history of astronomy, and have been among the most highly cited and scientifically productive observing facilities in recent years. This trend is likely to…
Radio pulsars have been responsible for many astonishing astrophysical and fundamental physics breakthroughs since their discovery 50 years ago. In this review I will discuss many of the highlights, most of which were only possible because…
Astronomy, as many other scientific disciplines, is facing a true data deluge which is bound to change both the praxis and the methodology of every day research work. The emerging field of astroinformatics, while on the one end appears…
With the new discoveries enabled thanks to the recent space missions, stellar physics is going through a revolution. However, these discoveries opened the door to many new questions that require more observations. The European Space…
The amount of scientific data to be transmitted from deep-space probes is very limited due to RF-communications constraints. Free-space optical communication can alleviate this bottleneck, increasing data rate while reducing weight, mass…
Astronomy is changing. Large projects, large collaborations, and large budgets are becoming the norm. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is one example of this new astronomy, and in operating the original survey, we put in place and…