Related papers: Autonomous Rapid Exploration in Close-Proximity of…
For autonomous mobile robots, uncertainties in the environment and system model can lead to failure in the motion planning pipeline, resulting in potential collisions. In order to achieve a high level of robust autonomy, these robots should…
Autonomous robots operating in unstructured, safety-critical environments, from planetary exploration to warehouses and homes, must learn to safely navigate and interact with their surroundings despite limited prior knowledge. Current…
Robot navigation requires an autonomy pipeline that is robust to environmental changes and effective in varying conditions. Teach and Repeat (T&R) navigation has shown high performance in autonomous repeated tasks under challenging…
Autonomous robot person-following (RPF) systems are crucial for personal assistance and security but suffer from target loss due to occlusions in dynamic, unknown environments. Current methods rely on pre-built maps and assume static…
Autonomous satellite servicing missions must execute close-range rendezvous under stringent safety and operational constraints while remaining computationally tractable for onboard use and robust to uncertainty in sensing, actuation, and…
The Gaia Data Release 1 (GDR1) is a first, important step on the path of evolution of astrometric accuracy towards a much improved situation. Although asteroids are not present in GDR1, this intermediate release already impacts asteroid…
Low-thrust trajectory design relies heavily on repeated evaluations of fuel consumption and transfer feasibility, which require expensive optimal control solutions. In this work, we show these quantities can be accurately approximated by…
The general objective of this Ph.D. thesis is to study the dynamics and control of rigid and flexible spacecraft supported by a high-fidelity numerical simulation environment. The demand for greater attitude pointing precision, attitude…
The space environment around the Earth is becoming increasingly populated by both active spacecraft and space debris. To avoid potential collision events, significant improvements in Space Situational Awareness (SSA) activities and…
Building and maintaining a space object catalog is necessary for space situational awareness. To realize this, one great challenge is uncooperative spacecraft maneuver detection because unknown maneuver events can lead to deviated orbital…
A research and development (R&D) project related to the extension of the Geant4 toolkit has been recently launched to address fundamental methods in radiation transport simulation. The project focuses on simulation at different scales in…
Autonomous exploration requires a robot to explore an unknown environment while constructing an accurate map using Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) techniques. Without prior information, the exploration performance is usually…
This paper presents a vision guidance and control method for autonomous robotic capture and stabilization of orbital objects in a time-critical manner. The method takes into account various operational and physical constraints, including…
The Gravity Tractor (GT) is a fully controlled asteroid deflection concept using the mutual gravity between a robotic spacecraft and an asteroid to slowly accelerate the asteroid in the direction of the "hovering" spacecraft. Based on early…
Current methods of deploying robots that operate in dynamic, uncertain environments, such as Uncrewed Aerial Systems in search \& rescue missions, require nearly continuous human supervision for vehicle guidance and operation. These methods…
The climate crisis we are facing calls for significant improvements in our understanding of natural phenomena, with clouds being identified as a dominant source of uncertainty. To this end, the emerging field of 3D computed cloud tomography…
This paper presents innovative solutions to critical challenges in planetary and deep-space exploration electronics. We synthesize findings across diverse mission profiles, highlighting advances in: (1) MARTIAN positioning systems with…
On-orbit spacecraft inspection is an important capability for enabling servicing and manufacturing missions and extending the life of spacecraft. However, as space operations become increasingly more common and complex, autonomous control…
We present an automated and probabilistic method to make prediscovery detections of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) in archival survey images, with the goal of reducing orbital uncertainty immediately after discovery. We refit Minor Planet…
Geomagnetic navigation leverages the ubiquitous Earth's magnetic signals to navigate missions, without dependence on GPS services or pre-stored geographic maps. It has drawn increasing attention and is promising particularly for long-range…