Related papers: Pointing System for the Balloon-Borne Astronomical…
Marker-based landing is widely used in drone delivery and return-to-base systems for its simplicity and reliability. However, most approaches assume idealized landing site visibility and sensor performance, limiting robustness in complex…
Inertial odometry (IO) directly estimates the position of a carrier from inertial sensor measurements and serves as a core technology for the widespread deployment of consumer grade localization systems. While existing IO methods can…
This paper describes the design and implementation of a ground-related odometry sensor suitable for micro aerial vehicles. The sensor is based on a ground-facing camera and a single-board Linux-based embedded computer with a multimedia…
PoGOLite is a hard X-ray polarimeter operating in the 25-100 keV energy band. The instrument design is optimised for the observation of compact astrophysical sources. Observations are conducted from a stabilised stratospheric balloon…
Emissions of particulate matter into the atmosphere are essential to characterize, in terms of properties such as particle size, morphology, and composition, to better understand impacts on public health and the climate. However, there is…
In various industrial sectors, inspection and maintenance tasks using UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) require substantial force application to ensure effective adherence and stable contact, posing significant challenges to existing solutions.…
The BLAST Observatory is a proposed superpressure balloon-borne polarimeter designed for a future ultra-long duration balloon campaign from Wanaka, New Zealand. To maximize scientific output while staying within the stringent superpressure…
This work proposes a strategy for organising quadrotors around a payload to enable hovering without external stimuli, together with a MATLAB software for modelling the dynamics of a quadrotor-payload system. Based on geometric concepts, the…
This paper describes the wave-front correction and image stabilisation system (CWS) developed for the Sunrise III balloon-borne telescope, and provides information about its performance as measured during the integration into the telescope…
We report on the design and the construction of a sounding rocket payload capable of performing atom interferometry with Bose-Einstein condensates of $^{41}$K and $^{87}$Rb. The apparatus is designed to be launched in two consecutive…
ASTROD I is planned as a single spacecraft mission. It will use interferometric and pulse ranging techniques between the spacecraft and ground stations, to make high precision measurements of the parameters that describe the solar system,…
This study presents the development of an integrated device for measuring magnetoelastic resonance, utilizing a gain/phase detector and the Arduino platform. The device stands out for its simplicity, low cost, and efficiency. It employs the…
In this paper, we present an observation scheme, with proven Lyapunov stability, for estimating a humanoid's floating base orientation. The idea is to use velocity aided attitude estimation, which requires to know the velocity of the…
This paper describes an approach to building a cost-effective and research grade visual-inertial odometry aided vertical taking-off and landing (VTOL) platform. We utilize an off-the-shelf visual-inertial sensor, an onboard computer, and a…
Autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) have the potential to be employed for surveillance and monitoring tasks. By perching and staring on one or multiple locations aerial robots can save energy while concurrently increasing their overall…
Inertial measurement unit (IMU) and odometer have been commonly-used sensors for autonomous land navigation in the global positioning system (GPS)-denied scenarios. This paper systematically proposes a versatile strategy for self-contained…
Robust and accurate pose estimation of a robotic platform, so-called sensor-based odometry, is an essential part of many robotic applications. While many sensor odometry systems made progress by adding more complexity to the ego-motion…
The joint optimization of physical parameters and controllers in robotic systems is challenging. This is due to the difficulties of predicting the effect that changes in physical parameters have on final performances. At the same time,…
We present a device, created by us and named Stellector, composed by a laser pointer which is precisely guided by two step motors with the purpose to explore and teach astronomy concepts having the real night sky in the background. The…
The Next Generation Balloon-Borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST-TNG) was a unique instrument for characterizing the polarized submillimeter sky at high-angular resolution. BLAST-TNG flew from the Long Duration Balloon…