Related papers: Extensible Hook System for Rendesvouz and Docking …

Swarm robotic systems are mainly inspired by swarms of socials insects and the collective emergent behavior that arises from their cooperation at the lower lever. Despite the limited sensory ability, computational power, and communication…

A swarm of cooperating UAVs communicating with a distant multiantenna ground station can leverage MIMO spatial multiplexing to scale the capacity. Due to the line-of-sight propagation between the swarm and the ground station, the MIMO…

In comparison with existing approaches, which struggle with scalability, communication dependency, and robustness against dynamic failures, cooperative aerial transportation via robot swarms holds transformative potential for logistics and…

The recent, rapid advancement in space exploration is thanks to the accelerated miniaturization of electronics components on a spacecraft that is reducing the mass, volume and cost of satellites. Yet, access to space remains a distant dream…

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can serve as aerial base stations (BSs) to extend the ubiquitous connectivity for ground users (GUs) in the sixth-generation (6G) era. However, it is challenging to cooperatively deploy multiple UAV swarms in…

As space agencies are planning manned missions to reach Mars, researchers need to pave the way for supporting astronauts during their sojourn. This will also be achieved by providing broadband and low-latency connectivity through wireless…

An approach towards wireless ranging and synchronization using commercial of-the-shelf software-defined radio payloads for small satellites, esp. CubeSats is studied. The approach only relies on the programmable logic configuration and…

This paper presents a mission concept that enables Earth-Mars communications resistant to periods of solar conjunction by using CubeSat satellites equipped with a solar sail. The dynamics of the satellite is modeled separately in the…

We present PufferBot, an aerial robot with an expandable structure that may expand to protect a drone's propellers when the robot is close to obstacles or collocated humans. PufferBot is made of a custom 3D-printed expandable scissor…

Small satellite communications recently entered a period of massive interest driven by the uprising space applications. CubeSats are particularly attractive due to their low development costs which makes them very promising in playing a…

With the ever growing number of space debris in orbit, the need to prevent further space population is becoming more and more apparent. Refueling, servicing, inspection and deorbiting of spacecraft are some example missions that require…

A key factor in the economic efficiency of satellites is their availability in orbit. Replacing standardized building blocks, such as empty fuel tanks or outdated electronic modules, could greatly extend the satellites' lifetime. This,…

This paper investigates payload grasping from a moving platform using a hook-equipped aerial manipulator. First, a computationally efficient trajectory optimization based on complementarity constraints is proposed to determine the optimal…

The space communications industry is challenged to develop a technology that can deliver broadband services to user terminals equipped with miniature antennas, such as handheld devices. One potential solution to establish links with ground…

Grounded haptic devices can provide a variety of forces but have limited working volumes. Wearable haptic devices operate over a large volume but are relatively restricted in the types of stimuli they can generate. We propose the concept of…

Payload grasping and transportation with quadcopters is an active research area that has rapidly developed over the last decade. To grasp a payload without human interaction, most state-of-the-art approaches apply robotic arms that are…

There is a growing interest in Lunar exploration fed by the perception that the Moon can be made accessible to low-cost missions in the next decade. The on-going projects to set a communications relay in Lunar orbit and a deep space…

The miniaturization of electronics, sensors and actuators has enabled the growing use of CubeSats and sub-20 kg spacecraft. Their reduced mass and volume has the potential to translate into significant reductions in required propellant and…

ReachBot, a proposed robotic platform, employs extendable booms as limbs for mobility in challenging environments, such as martian caves. When attached to the environment, ReachBot acts as a parallel robot, with reconfiguration driven by…

This study proposes an approach for establishing an optimal multihop ad-hoc network using multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to provide emergency communication in disaster areas. The approach includes two stages, one uses particle…