Related papers: Autonomous Rapid Exploration in Close-Proximity of…
The recent growing interest in small solar system bodies such as asteroids and comets for scientific inspection, exploitation of resources, and planetary defense reasons is pushing the development of innovative engineering solutions to…
This paper proposes a Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) architecture for planetary rovers targeting the conditions of upcoming Mars exploration missions such as Mars 2020 and the Sample Fetching Rover (SFR). The navigation…
This paper presents the development and evaluation of an optimization-based autonomous trajectory planning algorithm for the asteroid reconnaissance phase of a deep-space exploration mission. The reconnaissance phase is a low-altitude flyby…
Gravity-Assisted maneuvers have been used as a technique to reduce fuel consumption in deep space missions for several decades now. It opened the doors of the exterior solar system. The literature shows those results, as well as new…
We investigate the autonomous control of gravity-assist hyperbolic trajectories using a path following control law based on sliding mode control theory. This control strategy ensures robustness to bounded disturbances. Monte Carlo…
Current practice for asteroid close proximity maneuvers requires extremely accurate characterization of the environmental dynamics and precise spacecraft positioning prior to the maneuver. This creates a delay of several months between the…
In this article, theory-based analytical methodologies of astrophysics employed in the modern era are suitably operated alongside a test research-grade telescope to image and determine the orbit of a near-earth asteroid from original…
Controlling spacecraft near asteroids in deep space comes with many challenges. The delays involved necessitate heavy usage of limited onboard computation resources while fuel efficiency remains a priority to support the long loiter times…
Exploring an unknown environment without colliding with obstacles is one of the essentials of autonomous vehicles to perform diverse missions such as structural inspections, rescues, deliveries, and so forth. Therefore, unmanned aerial…
Small body exploration is a pertinent challenge due to low gravity environments and strong sensitivity to perturbations like Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP). Thus, autonomous methods are being developed to enable safe navigation and control…
This article presents a path-following control law for autonomous orbital maintenance of small body missions. The control law is robust, stable, and capable of controlling only the orbital geometry, allowing the spacecraft to operate with…
Exploration is a fundamental problem in robot autonomy. A major limitation, however, is that during exploration robots oftentimes have to rely on on-board systems alone for state estimation, accumulating significant drift over time in large…
This paper presents a self-contained system for the robust utilization of aerial robots in the autonomous exploration of cave environments to help human explorers, first responders, and speleologists. The proposed system is generally…
Although wheeled robots have been predominant for planetary exploration, their geometry limits their capabilities when traveling over steep slopes, through rocky terrains, and in microgravity. Legged robots equipped with grippers are a…
This paper presents an adaptive observer-based navigation strategy for spacecraft in Circular Relative Orbit (CRO) scenarios, addressing challenges in proximity operations like formation flight and uncooperative target inspection. The…
The paper considers autonomous rendezvous maneuver and proximity operations of two spacecraft in presence of obstacles. A strategy that combines guidance and control algorithms is analyzed. The proposed closed-loop system is able to…
In recent years, understanding asteroids has shifted from light worlds to geological worlds by exploring modern spacecraft and advanced radar and telescopic surveys. However, flyby in 2029 will be an opportunity to conduct an internal…
Onboard autonomy technologies such as planning and scheduling, identification of scientific targets, and content-based data summarization, will lead to exciting new space science missions. However, the challenge of operating missions with…
A close partnership between people and partially autonomous machines has enabled decades of space exploration. But to further expand our horizons, our systems must become more capable. Increasing the nature and degree of autonomy - allowing…
The field of autonomous navigation for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) is in continuous growth and increasing levels of autonomy have been reached in the last few years. However, the task becomes more challenging when the focus is on the…