Related papers: AAO Starbugs: software control and associated algo…

In this paper we describe an unmanned aerial system equipped with a thermal-infrared camera and software pipeline that we have developed to monitor animal populations for conservation purposes. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach to tackle…

We present the results of a study along with a first prototype of a high precision system (? 1 arcsec) for pointing and tracking light (near-infrared) telescopes on board stratospheric balloons. Such a system is essentially composed by a…

We present the software system used to control and operate the South Pole Telescope. The South Pole Telescope is a 10-meter millimeter-wavelength telescope designed to measure anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at…

The Australian Astronomical Observatory's 'tilting spine' fibre positioning technology has been redeveloped to provide superior performance in a smaller package. The new design offers demonstrated closed-loop positioning errors of 2.8…

A concept of the ground-based optical astronomical observations efficiency is considered in this paper. We believe that a telescope efficiency can be increased by properly allocating observation tasks with respect to the current environment…

We have created a new autonomous laser-guide-star adaptive-optics (AO) instrument on the 60-inch (1.5-m) telescope at Palomar Observatory called Robo-AO. The instrument enables diffraction-limited resolution observing in the visible and…

The Rapid Telescopes for Optical Response (RAPTOR) experiment is a spatially distributed system of autonomous robotic telescopes that is designed to monitor the sky for optical transients. The core of the system is composed of two telescope…

This work presents the design of Stickbug, a six-armed, multi-agent, precision pollination robot that combines the accuracy of single-agent systems with swarm parallelization in greenhouses. Precision pollination robots have often been…

Recent advancements in low-cost astronomical equipment, including high-quality medium-aperture telescopes and low-noise CMOS detectors, have made the deployment of large optical telescope arrays both financially feasible and scientifically…

We have developped a new method for the scheduling of astronomical automatic telescopes, in the framework of the autonomous TAROT instrument. The MAJORDOME software can handle a variety of observations, constrained, periodic, etc., and…

Planetary bodies such as asteroids, comets, and planetary moons are high-value science targets as they hold important information about the formation and evolution of our solar system. However, due to their low-gravity, variable sizes and…

The StarScan machine at the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) completed measuring photographic astrograph plates to allow determination of proper motions for the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC) program. All applicable 1940 AGK2 plates, about…

We explore the range of wide field multi-object instrument concepts taking advantage of the unique capabilities of the Starbug focal plane positioning concept. Advances to familiar instrument concepts, such as fiber positioners and…

Using an observational derived model optical turbulence profile (model-OTP) we have investigated the performance of Adaptive Optics (AO) at Siding Spring Observatory (SSO), Australia. The simulations cover the performance for AO techniques…

The emergence of Agile Earth Observation Satellites (AEOSs) has marked a significant turning point in the field of Earth Observation (EO), offering enhanced flexibility in data acquisition. Concurrently, advancements in onboard satellite…

A key challenge for starshades is formation flying. To successfully image exoplanets, the telescope boresight and starshade must be aligned to ~1 m at separations of tens of thousands of kilometers. This challenge has two parts: first, the…

This paper presents the development of a real time tracking algorithm that runs on a 1.2 GHz PC/104 computer on-board a small UAV. The algorithm uses zero mean normalized cross correlation to detect and locate an object in the image. A…

In recent years, the field of aerial robotics has witnessed significant progress, finding applications in diverse domains, including post-disaster search and rescue operations. Despite these strides, the prohibitive acquisition costs…

The Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field spectrograph (SAMI) is a prototype wide-field system at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) which uses a plug-plate to mount its 13 x 61-core imaging fibre bundles (hexabundles) in the optical…

The 2dF (Two-degree Field) facility at the prime focus of the Anglo-Australian Telescope provides multiple object spectroscopy over a 2 degree field of view. Up to 400 target fibres can be independently positioned by a complex robot. Two…