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Landing is a challenging part of autonomous drone flight and a great research opportunity. This PhD proposes to improve on fiducial autonomous landing algorithms by making them more flexible. Further, it leverages its location, Iceland, to…
The allure of lunar surface exploration and development has recently captured widespread global attention. Robots have proved to be indispensable for exploring uncharted terrains, uncovering and leveraging local resources, and facilitating…
This work presents a 3D multi-robot exploration framework for a team of UGVs moving on uneven terrains. The framework was designed by casting the two-level coordination strategy presented in [1] into the context of multi-robot exploration.…
Quadruped robots are proliferating in industrial environments where they carry sensor payloads and serve as autonomous inspection platforms. Despite the advantages of legged robots over their wheeled counterparts on rough and uneven…
The ability to traverse an unknown environment is crucial for autonomous robot operations. However, due to the limited sensing capabilities and system constraints, approaching this problem with a single robot agent can be slow, costly, and…
In vegetated environments, such as forests, exploratory robots play a vital role in navigating complex, cluttered environments where human access is limited and traditional equipment struggles. Visual occlusion from obstacles, such as…
Wheeled rovers have been the primary choice for lunar exploration due to their speed and efficiency. However, deeper areas, such as lunar caves and craters, require the mobility of legged robots. To do so, appropriate end effectors must be…
Under a terraforming scenario, a reactivated hydrological cycle on Mars will result in upwards movement of water due to evaporation and precipitation. If Mars' embryonic fossilized catchments provide inadequate drainage, Mars' limited…
Mars is the next destination after Earth to support terrestrial life. Decades of Mars exploration has fascinated space explorers to endeavour for a human expedition. But human Mars enterprise is complicated than conventional mission as the…
Conducting levitated mechanical experiments in extreme conditions has long been the aim of researchers, as it allows for the investigation of new fundamental physics phenomena. One of the great frontiers has been sending these experiments…
Pits on the Moon and Mars are intriguing geological formations that have yet to be explored. These geological formations can provide protection from harsh diurnal temperature variations, ionizing radiation, and meteorite impacts. Some have…
The search for water on the Lunar and Martian surfaces is a fundamental aspect of space exploration, contributing to the understanding of the history and evolution of these celestial bodies. However, the current understanding of the…
In the field of modern robotics, robots are proving to be useful in tackling high-risk situations, such as navigating hazardous environments like burning buildings, earthquake-stricken areas, or patrolling crime-ridden streets, as well as…
Autonomous exploration of multi-floor buildings remains challenging for ground robots because conventional 2D and 2.5D maps cannot represent overlapping traversable surfaces such as stairs, ramps, and multiple reachable elevations. This…
The Mars Life Explorer (MLE) mission concept offers a critical opportunity to investigate whether extant life exists within the mid-latitude ice deposits of Mars. However, MLE's current science traceability matrix emphasizes habitability…
High-speed legged navigation in discrete and geometrically complex environments is a challenging task because of the high-degree-of-freedom dynamics and long-horizon, nonconvex nature of the optimization problem. In this work, we propose a…
Multi-legged elongate robots hold promise for maneuvering through complex environments. Prior work has demonstrated that reliable locomotion can be achieved using open-loop body undulation and foot placement on rugose terrain. However,…
Rescue missions in mountain environments are hardly achievable by standard legged robots-because of the high slopes-or by flying robots-because of limited payload capacity. We present a concept for a rope-aided climbing robot which can…
After the successful landing of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, both NASA and ESA initiated a selection process for potential landing sites for the Mars2020 and ExoMars missions, respectively. Two ellipses located in the Mawrth Vallis…
Mars is the next milestone in human exploration. However, there are still several challenges that must be assessed to ensure appropriate conditions in a future settlement. Communications services will be essential for this task, providing…