Related papers: A tri-static ground-based laser ranging method for…
Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) is an established technique providing very accurate position measurements of satellites in Earth orbit. However, despite decades of development, it remains a complex and expensive technology, which impedes its…
Using actual flight data from a 50-cm-class microsatellite whose mission and operations have already been completed, this study re-evaluates satellite attitude determination performance and the error characteristics of onboard attitude…
Air-bearing platforms for simulating the rotational dynamics of satellites require highly precise ground truth systems. Unfortunately, commercial motion capture systems used for this scope are complex and expensive. This paper shows a novel…
Reliable satellite attitude control is essential for the success of space missions, particularly as satellites increasingly operate autonomously in dynamic and uncertain environments. Reaction wheels (RWs) play a pivotal role in attitude…
This paper focuses on the optimal design of a modulated retroreflector (MRR) laser link to establish a high-speed downlink for cube satellites (CubeSats), taking into account the weight and power limitations commonly encountered by these…
The precise knowledge of the positions of space debris objects and in particular of defunct satellites is fundamental for satellite operations. Several studies showed that it is possible to improve the accuracy of the orbit determination…
Small-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been widely investigated for use in a variety of applications such as remote sensing and aerial surveying. Direct three-dimensional (3D) mapping using a small-sized UAV equipped with a laser…
Recent results of the LARASE research program in terms of models improvements and relativistic measurements are presented. In particular, the results regarding the development of new models for the non-gravitational perturbations that…
The modulation of high-energy transients' (or steadily emitting sources') light curves due to the imperfect alignment of the detector's view axis with the spin axis in a spin-stabilized satellite is derived. It is shown how the orientation…
This paper studies the attitude control of a satellite in three-axis by thrusters. The mathematical model of attitude dynamics and kinematics of the satellite is represented as a switched system with sub-systems. Each sub-system is defined…
LiDAR-based SLAM is recognized as one effective method to offer localization guidance in rough environments. However, off-the-shelf LiDAR-based SLAM methods suffer from significant pose estimation drifts, particularly components relevant to…
Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) is an established technology used for geodesy, fundamental science and precise orbit determination. This paper reports on the first successful SLR measurement from the German Aerospace Center research…
This paper is the second part of a series of studies discussing a novel attitude determination method for nano-satellites. Our approach is based on the utilization of thermal imaging sensors to determine the direction of the Sun and the…
Due to the importance of satellites for society and the exponential increase in the number of objects in orbit, it is important to accurately determine the state (e.g., position and velocity) of these Resident Space Objects (RSOs) at any…
All powered spacecraft experience residual systematic acceleration due to anisotropy of the thermal radiation pressure and fuel leakage. The residual acceleration limits the accuracy of any test of gravity that relies on the precise…
Loop closing and relocalization are crucial techniques to establish reliable and robust long-term SLAM by addressing pose estimation drift and degeneration. This article begins by formulating loop closing and relocalization within a unified…
Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) and 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) have emerged as powerful tools for 3D reconstruction and SLAM tasks. However, their performance depends heavily on accurate camera pose priors. Existing approaches attempt to…
Industrial robots are increasingly used in various applications where the robot accuracy becomes very important, hence calibrations of the robot's kinematic parameters and the measurement system's extrinsic parameters are required. However,…
Measuring the stellar position angle provides valuable information on binary stellar formation or stellar spin axis evolution. We aim to develop a method for determining the absolute stellar position angle using spectro-astrometric analysis…
The purpose of this paper is to present an application of the State Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE) method to satellite attitude control where the satellite kinematics is modeled by Modified Rodriguez Parameters (MRP). The SDRE…