Related papers: The NRL Program in X-ray Navigation
Time-variable polarization is an extremely valuable observational tool to probe the dynamical physical conditions of blazar jets. Since 2008, we have been monitoring the flux and linear polarization of a sample of gamma-ray bright blazars…
The systematic search for the presence of cyclotron lines in the spectra of accreting X-ray pulsars is being carried on with the BeppoSAX satellite since the beginning of the mission. These highly successful observations allowed the…
X-ray polarimetry is still largely uncharted territory. With the upcoming launch of IXPE, we will learn a lot more about X-ray polarization at energies above 2 keV, but so far no current or accepted mission provides observational…
Recent research on deep learning, a set of machine learning techniques able to learn deep architectures, has shown how robotic perception and action greatly benefits from these techniques. In terms of spacecraft navigation and control…
We demonstrate how observations of pulsars can be used to help navigate a spacecraft travelling in the solar system. We make use of archival observations of millisecond pulsars from the Parkes radio telescope in order to demonstrate the…
Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) is gaining attention as a potential approach to design trajectories for autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) used as flying access points in the context of cellular or Internet of Things (IoT)…
X-ray polarimetry has seen a growing interest in recent years. Improvements in detector technology and focusing X-ray optics now enable sensitive astrophysical X-ray polarization measurements. These measurements will provide new insights…
Autonomous navigation in unknown complex environment is still a hard problem, especially for small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with limited computation resources. In this paper, a neural network-based reactive controller is proposed for…
We report on observations of the unusual neutron-star binary system FIRST J102347.6+003841 carried out using the XMM-Newton satellite. This system consists of a radio millisecond pulsar in an 0.198-day orbit with a ~0.2 solar-mass…
Recently, approaches using Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) have been proposed to solve UAV navigation systems in complex and unknown environments. However, despite extensive research and attention, systematic studies on various security…
The X-ray light curves of hundreds of bursts are now available, thanks to the X-ray Telescope on board the Swift satellite, on time scales from ~1 minute up to weeks and in some cases months from the burst explosion. These data allow us to…
X-ray polarization is a unique new probe of the particle acceleration in astrophysical jets made possible through the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer. Here we report on the first dense X-ray polarization monitoring campaign on the blazar…
Object Goal Navigation requires a robot to find and navigate to an instance of a target object class in a previously unseen environment. Our framework incrementally builds a semantic map of the environment over time, and then repeatedly…
Space exploration missions have seen use of increasingly sophisticated robotic systems with ever more autonomy. Deep learning promises to take this even a step further, and has applications for high-level tasks, like path planning, as well…
In unseen and complex outdoor environments, collision avoidance navigation for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms presents a challenging problem. It requires UAVs to navigate through various obstacles and complex backgrounds. Existing…
Preference-aligned robot navigation in human environments is typically achieved through learning-based approaches, utilizing user feedback or demonstrations for personalization. However, personal preferences are subject to change and might…
Over the past 16 years, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has provided an unparalleled means for exploring the universe with its half-arcsecond angular resolution. Chandra studies have deepened our understanding of galaxy clusters, active…
While X-ray Spectroscopy, Timing and Imaging have improved verymuch since 1962, when the first astronomical non-solar source was discovered, especially with the launch of Newton/X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission, Rossi/X-ray Timing Explorer and…
X-ray flashes (XRFs) are a class of high-energy transients whose nature is still open to question. Similar in many aspects to common gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), their strong X-ray emission is accompanied by very low or absent emission in the…
I briefly describe a few important scientific issues that could be addressed effectively via the combination of data from JDEM and X-ray missions. The topics covered are largely focused on active galactic nuclei (AGN) and include (1) the…