Related papers: A Control Framework for CUBESAT Rendezvous and Pro…
We present a new space mission concept that is capable of finding, detecting, and tracking 90% of near-Earth objects (NEO) with H magnitude of $\rm H\leq22$ (i.e., $\sim$140 m in size) that are potentially hazardous to the Earth. The new…
This work presents an event-triggered controller for spacecraft rendezvous hovering phases. The goal is to maintain the chaser within a bounded region with respect to the target. The main assumption is that the chaser vehicle has impulsive…
The use of cubesat swarms is being proposed for different missions where cooperation between satellites is required. Commonly, the cube swarm requires formation flight and even rendezvous and docking, which are very challenging tasks since…
In field environments, numerous robots necessitate manual intervention for restoration of functionality post a turnover, resulting in diminished operational efficiency. This study presents an innovative design solution for a reversible…
CubeSats have become a meaningful option for deep-space exploration, but their autonomy must be increased to maximize the science return while limiting the complexity in operations. We present here a solution for an autonomous orbit…
The precise insertion of CubeSats into designated orbits is a complex task, primarily due to the limited propulsion capabilities and constrained fuel reserves onboard, which severely restrict the scope for large orbital corrections. This…
Consider an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) physically connected to the ground station with a tether operating in a space, tasked with performing precise maneuvers while constrained by the physical limitation of its tether, which prevents it…
This work presents a sequential convex program method to compute fuel-optimal collision avoidance maneuvers for long-term encounters. The low-thrust acceleration model is used to account for the control, but the method can compute…
This paper studies the safety-critical control problem for Euler-Lagrange (EL) systems subject to multiple ball obstacles and velocity constraints in accordance with affordable velocity ranges. A key strategy is to exploit the underlying…
Virtual Super-resolution Optics with Reconfigurable Swarms (VISORS) is a distributed telescope mission for high-resolution imaging of the Sun using two 6U CubeSats flying in formation in a Sun-synchronous low-Earth orbit. An optics…
We propose a continuous feedback control strategy that steers a point-mass vehicle safely to a desired destination, in a quasi-optimal manner, from almost all initial conditions in an n-dimensional Euclidean space cluttered with spherical…
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…
This paper studies a novel encirclement guaranteed cooperative pursuit problem involving $N$ pursuers and a single evader in an unbounded two-dimensional game domain. Throughout the game, the pursuers are required to maintain encirclement…
Semi-Global Exponential Stability (SGES) is proved for the combined attitude and position rigid body motion tracking problem, which was previously only known to be asymptotically stable. Dual quaternions are used to jointly represent the…
We present a guidance by repulsion model based on a driver-evader interaction where the driver, assumed to be faster than the evader, follows the evader but cannot be arbitrarily close to it, and the evader tries to move away from the…
The Asteroid Tugboat (AT) is a fully controlled asteroid deflection concept using a robotic spacecraft powered by a high efficiency, electric propulsion system (ion or plasma) which docks with and attaches to the asteroid, conducts…
Traditional reachability methods provide formal guarantees of safety under bounded disturbances. However, they strictly enforce state constraints as inviolable, which can result in overly conservative or infeasible solutions in complex…
Machine learning techniques have demonstrated their effectiveness in achieving autonomy and optimality for nonlinear and high-dimensional dynamical systems. However, traditional black-box machine learning methods often lack formal stability…
Performing real-time receding horizon motion planning for autonomous vehicles while providing safety guarantees remains difficult. This is because existing methods to accurately predict ego vehicle behavior under a chosen controller use…
Missions to rendezvous with or capture an asteroid present significant interest both from a geophysical and safety point of view. They are key to the understanding of our solar system are as well stepping stones for interplanetary human…