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Gravitomagnetism--a motional coupling of matter analogous to the Lorentz force in electromagnetism--has observable consequences for any scenario involving differing mass currents. Examples include gyroscopes located near a rotating massive…
The regain of interest in Moon exploration has substantially grown in the last years. For this reason, the space agencies consider the development of a precise navigation and positioning service similar to the Earth GNSS. Aiming at some…
Autonomous precision navigation to land onto the Moon relies on vision sensors. Computer vision algorithms are designed, trained and tested using synthetic simulations. High quality terrain models have been produced by Moon orbiters…
Loop Closure Detection (LCD) is an essential task in robotics and computer vision, serving as a fundamental component for various applications across diverse domains. These applications encompass object recognition, image retrieval, and…
Short (40-200 microseconds) single focused CO2 laser pulses of energy of about 100 microJ were used to fabricate high quality concave micromirror templates on silica and fluoride glass. The ablated features have diameters of 20-100 microns…
Transparent surfaces, such as glass, transmit most of the visible light that falls on them, making accurate pose estimation challenging. We propose a method to locate glass objects to millimetre accuracy using a simple Laser Range Finder…
(Abridged) Lunar occultations (LO) are a very efficient and powerful technique, that achieves the best combination of high angular resolution and sensitivity possible today at near-infrared wavelengths. Given that the events are fixed in…
Laser speckle, the granular intensity pattern arising from random optical interference, provides a high-dimensional encoding of spectral information that can be exploited for precision metrology. Speckle-based spectrometers have advanced…
LARS is an Absolute Reference Spectrograph designed for ultra-precise solar observations. The high-resolution echelle spectrograph of the Vacuum Tower Telescope is supported by a state-of-the-art laser frequency comb to calibrate the solar…
Many standard robotic platforms are equipped with at least a fixed 2D laser range finder and a monocular camera. Although those platforms do not have sensors for 3D depth sensing capability, knowledge of depth is an essential part in many…
We present the results of measuring the geocentric lunar distance using what we propose is the simplest method to achieve a precise result. Although lunar distance has been systematically measured to a precision of few millimeters using…
A high performance Space-Time Reference in orbit could be realized using a stable atomic clock in a precisely defined orbit and linking that to high accuracy atomic clocks on the ground using a laser based time-transfer link. This would…
Side-view imaging of the contact angle between an extended planar solid surface and a liquid is problematic. Even when aligning the view perfectly parallel to the contact line, focusing one point of the contact line is not possible. We…
LuSEE-Night is a pathfinder radio telescope on the lunar far side employing four 3-m monopole antennas arranged as two horizontal cross pseudo-dipoles on a rotational stage and sensitive to the radio sky in the 1-50 MHz frequency band.…
The lunar geological record contains a rich archive of the history of the inner Solar System, including information relevant to understanding the origin and evolution of the Earth-Moon system, the geological evolution of rocky planets, and…
Large frame Ring laser gyroscopes, based on the Sagnac effect, are top sensitivity instrumentation to measure angular velocity with respect to the fixed stars. GINGER (Gyroscopes IN GEneral Relativity) project foresees the construction of…
In recent years, radio frequency (RF) sensing has gained increasing popularity due to its pervasiveness, low cost, non-intrusiveness, and privacy preservation. However, realizing the promises of RF sensing is highly nontrivial, given…
Measuring relativistic reflection is an important tool to study the innermost regions of the an accreting black hole system. In the following we present a brief review on the different aspects contributing to the relativistic reflection.…
Large scale square ring laser gyros with a length of four meters on each side are approaching a sensitivity of 1x10^-11 rad/s/sqrt(Hz). This is about the regime required to measure the gravitomagnetic effect (Lense Thirring) of the Earth.…
We present the scientific case to build a multiple-wavelength, active, near-infrared (NIR) instrument to measure the reflected intensity and polarization characteristics of backscattered radiation from planetary surfaces and atmospheres. We…