Related papers: Hybrid Autonomy Framework for a Future Mars Scienc…
Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) have emerged as a promising solution to enhance navigational safety, operational efficiency, and long-term cost effectiveness. However, their reliable deployment requires rigorous verification and…
The Mars Science Helicopter (MSH) mission aims to deploy the next generation of unmanned helicopters on Mars, targeting landing sites in highly irregular terrain such as Valles Marineris, the largest canyons in the Solar system with…
The task of establishing and maintaining situational awareness in an unknown environment is a critical step to fulfil in a mission related to the field of rescue robotics. Predominantly, the problem of visual inspection of urban structures…
Motion planning is a critical component of intelligent unmanned systems, enabling their complex autonomous operations. However, current planning algorithms still face limitations in planning efficiency due to inflexible strategies and weak…
Micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) have high potential for information gathering tasks to support situation awareness in search and rescue scenarios. Manually controlling MAVs in such scenarios requires experienced pilots and is error-prone,…
Future SAE Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous vehicles will require novel applications of localization, perception, control and artificial intelligence technology in order to offer innovative and disruptive solutions to current mobility…
In this paper we present a simulation framework for the evaluation of the navigation and localization metrological performances of a robotic platform. The simulator, based on ROS (Robot Operating System) Gazebo, is targeted to a…
We present a simulation framework for lunar construction work involving multiple autonomous machines. The framework supports modelling of construction scenarios and autonomy solutions, execution of the scenarios in simulation, and analysis…
Today's heavy-duty mobile machines (HDMMs) face two transitions: from diesel-hydraulic actuation to clean electric systems driven by climate goals, and from human supervision toward greater autonomy. Diesel-hydraulic systems have long…
Efficient performance of a number of engineering systems is achieved through different modes of operation - yielding systems described as "hybrid", containing both real-valued and discrete decision variables. Prominent examples of such…
Mobile robots have become indispensable for exploring hostile environments, such as in space or disaster relief scenarios, but often remain limited to teleoperation by a human operator. This restricts the deployment scale and requires…
This paper presents a self-contained system for the robust utilization of aerial robots in the autonomous exploration of cave environments to help human explorers, first responders, and speleologists. The proposed system is generally…
One of the most challenging tasks for a flying robot is to autonomously navigate between target locations quickly and reliably while avoiding obstacles in its path, and with little to no a-priori knowledge of the operating environment. This…
This paper describes some results of research on associate systems: knowledge-based systems that flexibly and adaptively support their human users in carrying out complex, time-dependent problem-solving tasks under uncertainty. Based on…
The successes of previous and current Mars rovers have encouraged space agencies worldwide to pursue additional planetary exploration missions with more ambitious navigation goals. For example, NASA's planned Mars Sample Return mission will…
The space environment around the Earth is becoming increasingly populated by both active spacecraft and space debris. To avoid potential collision events, significant improvements in Space Situational Awareness (SSA) activities and…
Recent breakthroughs in multimodal large language models (MLLMs) have endowed AI systems with unified perception, reasoning and natural-language interaction across text, image and video streams. Meanwhile, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)…
Robotics plays a pivotal role in planetary science and exploration, where autonomous and reliable systems are crucial due to the risks and challenges inherent to space environments. The establishment of permanent lunar bases demands robotic…
Autonomous vehicles must navigate dynamically uncertain environments while balancing safety and efficiency. This challenge is exacerbated by unpredictable human-driven vehicle (HV) behaviors and perception inaccuracies, necessitating…
Heterogeneous multi-robot systems (HMRS) have emerged as a powerful approach for tackling complex tasks that single robots cannot manage alone. Current large-language-model-based multi-agent systems (LLM-based MAS) have shown success in…