Related papers: The NRL Program in X-ray Navigation
In pulsar astronomy, detecting effective pulsar signals among numerous pulsar candidates is an important research topic. Starting from space X-ray pulsar signals, the two-dimensional autocorrelation profile map (2D-APM) feature modelling…
In this contribution we review the recent progress in the modeling of Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWN). We start with a brief overview of the relevant physical processes in the magnetosphere, the wind-zone and the inflated nebula bubble. Radiative…
Solving robotic navigation tasks via reinforcement learning (RL) is challenging due to their sparse reward and long decision horizon nature. However, in many navigation tasks, high-level (HL) task representations, like a rough floor plan,…
Radiation of X-ray pulsars is powered by accretion on the neutron star surface from a binary companion under the influence of a strong magnetic field. We study beaming of this radiation in the case of subcritical X-ray pulsars, where it is…
Vision-and-Language Navigation (VLN) has gained increasing attention over recent years and many approaches have emerged to advance their development. The remarkable achievements of foundation models have shaped the challenges and proposed…
Pulsars seen at gamma-ray energies offer insight into particle acceleration to very high energies, along with information about the geometry and interaction processes in the magnetospheres of these rotating neutron stars. During the next…
JANUS is a NASA small explorer class mission which just completed phase A and was intended for a 2013 launch date. The primary science goals of JANUS are to use high redshift (6<z<12) gamma ray bursts and quasars to explore the formation…
Supernova remnants are beautiful astronomical objects that are also of high scientific interest, because they provide insights into supernova explosion mechanisms, and because they are the likely sources of Galactic cosmic rays. X-ray…
Vision-and-Language Navigation for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV-VLN) represents a pivotal challenge in embodied artificial intelligence, focused on enabling UAVs to interpret high-level human commands and execute long-horizon tasks in…
Recent years have seen tremendous advancements in the area of autonomous payload delivery via unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. However, most of these works involve delivering the payload at a predetermined location using its GPS…
I present an observational review of the five currently known accretion-driven millisecond X-ray pulsars. A prominent place in this review is given to SAX J1808.4-3658; it was the first such system discovered and currently four outbursts…
When using reinforcement learning (RL) to tackle physical control tasks, inductive biases that encode physics priors can help improve sample efficiency during training and enhance generalization in testing. However, the current practice of…
High-Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs) serve as useful laboratories for exploring the behaviour of accreted matter onto compact objects and for probing the complex wind environments of massive stars. These investigations are essential for…
In the era of Chandra and XMM-Newton, the detection (or nondetection) of diffuse and/or point-like X-ray sources within planetary nebulae (PNe) yields important, unique insight into PN shaping processes. Diffuse X-ray sources, whether due…
A coming resurgence of super heavy-lift launch vehicles has precipitated an immense interest in the future of crewed spaceflight and even future colonisation efforts. While it is true that a bright future awaits this sector, driven by…
We address the challenge of enhancing navigation autonomy for planetary space rovers using reinforcement learning (RL). The ambition of future space missions necessitates advanced autonomous navigation capabilities for rovers to meet…
Precessing relativistic jets launched by compact objects are rarely directly measured, and present an invaluable opportunity to better understand many features of astrophysical jets. In this Letter we present MeerKAT radio observations of…
In this White Paper we present the potential of the enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry (eXTP) mission for studies related to Observatory Science targets. These include flaring stars, supernova remnants, accreting white dwarfs, low and…
Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) demonstrates its potential in learning a model-free navigation policy for robot visual navigation. However, the data-demanding algorithm relies on a large number of navigation trajectories in training.…
In the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) context, the growing number of available satellites has lead to many challenges when it comes to choosing the most accurate pseudorange contributions, given the strong impact of biased…