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The spacecraft attitude tracking problem is addressed with actuator faults and uncertainties among inertias, external disturbances, and, in particular, state estimates. A continuous sliding mode attitude controller is designed using…

The autonomous operation of flexible-wing aircraft is technically challenging and has never been presented within literature. The lack of an exact modeling framework is due to the complex nonlinear aerodynamic relationships governed by the…

This paper presents a vision guidance and control method for autonomous robotic capture and stabilization of orbital objects in a time-critical manner. The method takes into account various operational and physical constraints, including…

Ego-motion estimation is vital for drones when flying in GPS-denied environments. Vision-based methods struggle when flight speed increases and close-by objects lead to difficult visual conditions with considerable motion blur and large…

Satellite dynamics in unknown environments are inherently uncertain due to factors such as varying gravitational fields, atmospheric drag, and unpredictable interactions with space debris or other celestial bodies. Traditional sliding mode…

There is a risk of collision when multiple UAVs land simultaneously without communication on the same platform. This work accomplishes vision-based autonomous landing and uses a deep-learning-based method to realize collision avoidance…

This research proposes a new integrated framework for identifying safe landing locations and planning in-flight divert maneuvers. The state-of-the-art algorithms for landing zone selection utilize local terrain features such as slopes and…

This work addresses the landing problem of an aerial vehicle, exemplified by a simple quadrotor, on a moving platform using image-based visual servo control. First, the mathematical model of the quadrotor aircraft is introduced, followed by…

Simulation-based verification algorithms can provide formal safety guarantees for nonlinear and hybrid systems. The previous algorithms rely on user provided model annotations called discrepancy function, which are crucial for computing…

With the high focus on autonomous aerial refueling recently, it becomes increasingly urgent to design efficient methods or algorithms to solve AAR problems in complicated aerial environments. Apart from the complex aerodynamic disturbance,…

The recent years have witnessed increased development of small, autonomous fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In order to unlock widespread applicability of these platforms, they need to be capable of operating under a variety of…

Autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicles are deployed for a variety tasks including surveillance and monitoring. Perching and staring allow the vehicle to monitor targets without flying, saving battery power and increasing the overall mission time…

A new era of space exploration and exploitation is fast approaching. A multitude of spacecraft will flow in the future decades under the propulsive momentum of the new space economy. Yet, the flourishing proliferation of deep-space assets…

Autonomous drone navigation faces a critical challenge in achieving accurate landings on dynamic platforms, especially under unpredictable conditions such as wind turbulence. Our research introduces TornadoDrone, a novel Deep Reinforcement…

We perform direct numerical simulations (DNS) of actively controlled laminar separated wakes around low-aspect-ratio wings with two primary goals: (i) reducing the size of the separation bubble and (ii) attenuating the wing tip vortex.…

Hazard detection is critical for enabling autonomous landing on planetary surfaces. Current state-of-the-art methods leverage traditional computer vision approaches to automate the identification of safe terrain from input digital elevation…

Many robotic systems are underactuated, meaning not all degrees of freedom can be directly controlled due to lack of actuators, input constraints, or state-dependent actuation. This property, compounded by modeling uncertainties and…

Agility and resilience requirements of future cellular networks may not be fully satisfied by terrestrial base stations in cases of unexpected or temporary events. A promising solution is assisting the cellular network via low-altitude…

This paper introduces an explicit reference governor-based control scheme tailored for addressing the velocity-free spacecraft attitude maneuver problem. This problem is subject to specific constraints, namely the pointing constraint,…

Autonomous space rovers face significant challenges when navigating deformable and heterogeneous terrains due to variability in soil properties, which can lead to severe wheel slip, compromising navigation efficiency and increasing the risk…