Related papers: The ReSWARM Microgravity Flight Experiments: Plann…
This study presents autonomous guidance and control strategies for the purpose of reconfiguring close-range multi-satellite formations. The formation under consideration includes $N$ under-actuated deputy satellites and an uncontrolled…
This paper presents a planning algorithm designed to improve cooperative robot behavior concerning human comfort during forceful human-robot physical interaction. Particularly, we are interested in planning for object grasping and…
This paper investigates the mission planning problem for spacecraft confronting orbital debris to achieve autonomous avoidance. Firstly, combined with the avoidance requirements, a closed-loop framework of autonomous avoidance for orbital…
Reconfigurable multi-robot cells offer a promising approach to meet fluctuating assembly demands. However, the recurrent planning of their configurations introduces new challenges, particularly in generating optimized, coordinated…
Autonomous spacecraft relative navigation technology has been planned for and applied to many famous space missions. The development of on-board electronics systems has enabled the use of vision-based and LiDAR-based methods to achieve…
Supplying spare parts from Earth for in space repair is economically prohibitive and logistically slow, posing a major barrier to sustainable space operations. As lunar and Martian missions accelerate in the coming decades, the feasibility…
Accurate gravity field models are essential for safe proximity operations around small bodies. State-of-the-art techniques use spherical harmonics or high-fidelity polyhedron shape models. Unfortunately, these techniques can become…
Magnetic rolling microrobots enable gentle manipulation in confined microfluidic environments, yet autonomy for contact-rich behaviors such as cell pushing and multi-target assembly remains difficult to develop and evaluate reproducibly. We…
Large-scale swarm robotic systems consisting of numerous cooperative agents show considerable promise for performing autonomous tasks across various sectors. Nonetheless, traditional motion planning approaches often face a trade-off between…
This work adds on to the on-going efforts to provide more autonomy to space robots. Here the concept of programming by demonstration or imitation learning is used for trajectory planning of manipulators mounted on small spacecraft. For…
Robots are widely deployed in space environments because of their versatility and robustness. However, adverse gravity conditions and challenging terrain geometry expose the limitations of traditional robot designs, which are often forced…
Rubenstein et al. present an interesting system of programmable self-assembled structure formation using 1000 Kilobot robots. The paper claims to advance work in artificial swarms similar to capabilities of natural systems besides being…
In communication restricted environments, a multi-robot system can be deployed to either: i) maintain constant communication but potentially sacrifice operational efficiency due to proximity constraints or ii) allow disconnections to…
Satellite constellation missions, consisting of a large number of spacecraft, are increasingly being launched or planned. Such missions require novel control approaches, in particular for what concerns orbital phasing maneuvers. In this…
Testing aerial robots in tasks such as pickup-and-delivery and surveillance significantly benefits from high energy efficiency and scalability of the deployed robotic system. This paper presents MochiSwarm, an open-source testbed of…
Self-assembly refers to the process by which small, simple components mix and combine to form complex structures using only local interactions. Designed as a hybrid between tile assembly models and cellular automata, the Tile Automata (TA)…
Reliable and efficient trajectory optimization methods are a fundamental need for autonomous dynamical systems, effectively enabling applications including rocket landing, hypersonic reentry, spacecraft rendezvous, and docking. Within such…
Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) will unlock their true potential once they can operate in groups. To this end, it is essential for them to estimate on-board the relative location of their neighbors. The challenge lies in limiting the mass and…
Modular Aerial Robot Systems (MARS) consist of multiple drone modules that are physically bound together to form a single structure for flight. Exploiting structural redundancy, MARS can be reconfigured into different formations to mitigate…
Part assembly is a typical but challenging task in robotics, where robots assemble a set of individual parts into a complete shape. In this paper, we develop a robotic assembly simulation environment for furniture assembly. We formulate the…