Related papers: Using physics-based simulation towards eliminating…
Research in soft manipulators has significantly enhanced object grasping capabilities, thanks to their adaptability to various shapes and sizes. Applying this technology to on-orbit servicing, especially during the capture and containment…
Pulsar systems are very good experimental laboratories for the fundamental physics in extreme environments which cannot be achieved on ground. For example, the systems are under conditions of high magnetic field strength, large…
Today, robotics is an auspicious and fast-growing branch of technology that involves the manufacturing, design, and maintenance of robot machines that can operate in an autonomous fashion and can be used in a wide variety of applications…
We study gravitational pivoting, a constrained version of in-hand manipulation, where we aim to control the rotation of an object around the grip point of a parallel gripper. To achieve this, instead of controlling the gripper to avoid…
Exploring planetary bodies with lower gravity, such as the moon and Mars, allows legged robots to utilize jumping as an efficient form of locomotion thus giving them a valuable advantage over traditional rovers for exploration. Motivated by…
The ExoMars mission of the program Aurora (ESA) aims to send a vehicle (Rover) on Mars in 2013. Beyond the technological aspects of the mission, the Rover will also carry scientific instruments for the analysis of Mars subsurface to search…
On February 6th, 2018 SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster on a Mars-crossing orbit. We perform N-body simulations to determine the fate of the object over the next 15 Myr. The orbital evolution is initially dominated by close encounters with…
The joint realm of quantum mechanics and the general-relativistic description of gravitation is becoming increasingly accessible to terrestrial experiments and observations. In this essay we study the emerging indications of the violation…
In robotic planetary surface exploration, strategic mobility planning is an important task that involves finding candidate long-distance routes on orbital maps and identifying segments with uncertain traversability. Then, expert human…
This paper addresses the motivation, technology and recent results in the tests of the general theory of relativity (GR) in the solar system. We specifically discuss Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR), the only technique available to test the Strong…
Tests of the Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP) probe the foundations of physics. Ever since Galileo in the early 1600s, WEP tests have attracted some of the best experimentalists of any time. Progress has come in bursts, each stimulated by…
Simulating curvature due to gravity through warped surfaces is a common visualization aid in Physics education. We reprise a recent experiment exploring orbital trajectories on a precise 3D-printed surface to mimic Newtonian gravity, and…
Optically levitated particles are used in a wide range of experiments to explore both fundamental physics and to act as sensors to a variety of external forces. One field of particular interest that these particles can be used to…
All-vs-all orbital evolutionary simulations for the low Earth orbit (LEO) simulate the long term evolution of the LEO environment. Although these simulations typically offer the highest fidelity, they are also highly computationally…
The following paper reviews recent developments in the field of optimization of space robotics. The extent of focus of this paper is on the perception (robotic sense of analyzing surroundings) in space robots in the exploration of…
This paper discusses new fundamental physics experiment to test relativistic gravity at the accuracy better than the effects of the 2nd order in the gravitational field strength. The Laser Astrometric Test Of Relativity (LATOR) mission uses…
We summarise the scientific and technological aspects of the SAGAS (Search for Anomalous Gravitation using Atomic Sensors) project, submitted to ESA in June 2007 in response to the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 call for proposals. The proposed…
The orbital sampling effect (OSE) appears in phase-folded transit light curves of extrasolar planets with moons. Analytical OSE models have hitherto neglected stellar limb darkening and non-zero transit impact parameters and assumed that…
Vision Based Navigation consists in utilizing cameras as precision sensors for GNC after extracting information from images. To enable the adoption of machine learning for space applications, one of obstacles is the demonstration that…
Use of physics-based simulation as a planning model enables a planner to reason and generate plans that involve non-trivial interactions with the world. For example, grasping a milk container out of a cluttered refrigerator may involve…