Related papers: Advanced System Engineering Approaches to Emerging…
Autonomous navigation is one of the main enabling technologies for future space missions. While conventional spacecraft are navigated through ground stations, their employment for deep-space CubeSats yields costs comparable to those of the…
As humanity prepares for new missions to the Moon and Mars, astronauts will need to operate with greater autonomy, given the communication delays that make real-time support from Earth difficult. For instance, messages between Mars and…
Robotic Exploration has evolved rapidly in the past two decades as new and more complex techniques have been created to explore unknown regions efficiently. Exciting advancements in exploration, autonomous navigation, and sensor technology…
Ultra-high angular resolution in astronomy has always been an important vehicle for making fundamental discoveries. Recent results in direct imaging of the vicinity of the supermassive black hole in the nucleus of the radio galaxy M87 by…
The interest in exploring planetary bodies for scientific investigation and in-situ resource utilization is ever-rising. Yet, many sites of interest are inaccessible to state-of-the-art planetary exploration robots because of the robots'…
The escalating accumulation of orbital debris threatens the sustainability of space operations, necessitating active removal solutions that overcome the limitations of current fuel-dependent methods. To address this, this study introduces a…
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…
We present a method for image-guided exploration for mobile robotic systems. Our approach extends ergodic exploration methods, a recent exploration approach that prioritizes complete coverage of a space, with the use of a learned image…
Satellite-based onboard data processing is crucial for time-sensitive applications requiring timely and efficient rapid response. Advances in edge artificial intelligence are shifting computational power from ground-based centers to…
Lunar exploration has become a key focus, driving scientific and technological advances. Ongoing missions are deploying rovers to the surface of the Moon, targeting the far side and south pole. However, these terrains pose challenges,…
While the capabilities of autonomous systems have been steadily improving in recent years, these systems still struggle to rapidly explore previously unknown environments without the aid of GPS-assisted navigation. The DARPA Subterranean…
Gravity-Assisted maneuvers have been used as a technique to reduce fuel consumption in deep space missions for several decades now. It opened the doors of the exterior solar system. The literature shows those results, as well as new…
Multiple governmental agencies and private organisations have made commitments for the colonisation of Mars. Such colonisation requires complex systems and infrastructure that could be very costly to repair or replace in cases of cyber…
This review paper explores the state-of-the-art in non-intrusive methods for detecting and characterising buried infrastructure, focusing on Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT), Infrared Thermography (IRT), and magnetometry, along with…
Marine environments present significant challenges for perception and autonomy due to dynamic surfaces, limited visibility, and complex interactions between aerial, surface, and submerged sensing modalities. This paper introduces the Aerial…
To explore the full potential of ultra-massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems, it is fundamental to understand new ultra-massive MIMO channel characteristics and establish pervasive channel models. On this…
The atmospheres of Mars and Titan are loaded with aerosols that impact remote sensing observations of their surface. Here we present the algorithm and the first applications of a radiative transfer model in spherical geometry designed for…
Satellite communications have recently entered a period of renewed interest motivated by technological advances and nurtured through private investment and ventures. The present survey aims at capturing the state of the art in SatComs,…
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…
The planetary ephemerides play a crucial role for spacecraft navigation, mission planning, reduction and analysis of the most precise astronomical observations. The construction of such ephemerides is highly constrained by the tracking…