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Underwater marine inspections for ship hull or marine debris, etc. are one of the vital measures carried out to ensure the safety of marine structures and underwater species. This work details the design, development and qualification of a…
Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) reduces patient trauma and shortens recovery time; however, conventional laparoscopic instruments remain constrained by limited range of movements. This work presents the control architecture of a 4-DOF…
Space robotics applications, such as Active Space Debris Removal (ASDR), require representative testing before launch. A commonly used approach to emulate the microgravity environment in space is air-bearing based platforms on flat-floors,…
This paper describes the architecture and demonstrates the capabilities of a newly developed, physically-based imaging simulator environment called SISPO, developed for small solar system body fly-by and terrestrial planet surface mission…
As part of University College Dublin's MSc in Space Science & Technology curriculum, student teams, over the course of a single term, design, build, launch (on a meteorological balloon), operate and recover their own payload on 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…
We discuss the in-flight autonomous assembly as the means to build advanced planetary science payloads to explore the outer regions of the solar system. These payloads are robotically constructed from modular parts delivered by a group of…
On-orbit close proximity operations involve robotic spacecraft maneuvering and making decisions for a growing number of mission scenarios demanding autonomy, including on-orbit assembly, repair, and astronaut assistance. Of these scenarios,…
This work addresses the challenge of a robot using real-time feedback from contact sensors to reliably manipulate a movable object on a cluttered tabletop. We formulate contact manipulation as a partially observable Markov decision process…
This paper presents an adaptive visual servoing framework for robotic on-orbit servicing (OOS), specifically designed for capturing tumbling satellites. The vision-guided robotic system is capable of selecting optimal control actions in the…
Object manipulation is a fundamental challenge in robotics, where systems must balance trade-offs among manipulation capabilities, system complexity, and throughput. Distributed manipulator systems (DMS) use the coordinated motion of…
A solar sail is one of the most promising space exploration system because of its theoretically infinite specific impulse using solar radiation pressure (SRP). Recently, some researchers proposed "transformable spacecrafts" that can…
Robotic manipulation in complex, constrained spaces is vital for widespread applications but challenging, particularly when navigating narrow passages with elongated objects. Existing planning methods often fail in these low-clearance…
The European Proximity Operation Simulator (EPOS) of the DLR-German Aerospace Center is a robotics-based simulator that aims at validating and verifying a satellite docking phase. The generic concept features a robotics tracking system…
Reaching tasks with random targets and obstacles is a challenging task for robotic manipulators. In this study, we propose a novel model-free reinforcement learning approach based on proximal policy optimization (PPO) for training a deep…
This paper presents a new and innovative design for scaleable space solar power systems based on satellite self-assembly and microwave spatial power combination. Lower system cost of utility-scale space solar power is achieved by…
Unmanned surface vessels USVs are typically autonomous or remotely operated and are specifically designed for environmental monitoring in various aquatic environments Aquaculture requires constant monitoring and management of water quality…
Robotic non-destructive disassembly of mating parts remains challenging due to the need for flexible manipulation and the limited visibility of internal structures. This study presents an affordance-guided teleoperation system that enables…
Given the cost and critical functions of satellite constellations, ensuring mission longevity and safe decommissioning is essential for space sustainability. This article presents a Model Predictive Control for spacecraft trajectory and…
This paper presents the foundation of a modular robotic system comprised of several novel modules in the shape of a tetrahedron. Four single-propeller submodules are assembled to create the Tetracopter, a tetrahedron-shaped quad-rotorcraft…