Related papers: Imitation learning-based spacecraft rendezvous and…
Learning-based methods, particularly Reinforcement Learning (RL), hold great promise for streamlining deployment, enhancing performance, and achieving generalization in the control of autonomous multirotor aerial vehicles. Deep RL has been…
The general objective of this Ph.D. thesis is to study the dynamics and control of rigid and flexible spacecraft supported by a high-fidelity numerical simulation environment. The demand for greater attitude pointing precision, attitude…
Autonomous UAV infiltration in dynamic contested environments remains a significant challenge due to the partially observable nature of threats and the conflicting objectives of mission efficiency versus survivability. Traditional…
Estimating the pose of an uncooperative spacecraft is an important computer vision problem for enabling the deployment of automatic vision-based systems in orbit, with applications ranging from on-orbit servicing to space debris removal.…
This paper presents an iterative learning control (ILC) scheme for continuously operated repetitive systems for which no initial condition reset exists. To accomplish this, we develop a lifted system representation that accounts for the…
Model-free learning-based control methods have recently shown significant advantages over traditional control methods in avoiding complex vehicle characteristic estimation and parameter tuning. As a primary policy learning method, imitation…
Iterative learning control (ILC) is a method for reducing system tracking or estimation errors over multiple iterations by using information from past iterations. The disturbance observer (DOB) is used to estimate and mitigate disturbances…
As the number of spacecraft in orbit continues to increase, it is becoming more challenging for human operators to manage each mission. As a result, autonomous control methods are needed to reduce this burden on operators. One method of…
Local-remote systems allow robots to execute complex tasks in hazardous environments such as space and nuclear power stations. However, establishing accurate positional mapping between local and remote devices can be difficult due to time…
This investigation introduces a novel deep reinforcement learning-based suite to control floating platforms in both simulated and real-world environments. Floating platforms serve as versatile test-beds to emulate micro-gravity environments…
Imitation learning (IL) with human demonstrations is a promising method for robotic manipulation tasks. While minimal demonstrations enable robotic action execution, achieving high success rates and generalization requires high cost, e.g.,…
Personal robots assisting humans must perform complex manipulation tasks that are typically difficult to specify in traditional motion planning pipelines, where multiple objectives must be met and the high-level context be taken into…
Spacecraft rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) pose safety risks to high-value assets, so formal safety guarantees are critical. Yet conservative safety controllers can reduce mission efficiency. We propose a unified two-stage…
We develop provably safe and convergent reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms for control of nonlinear dynamical systems, bridging the gap between the hard safety guarantees of control theory and the convergence guarantees of RL theory.…
This paper presents a novel model-reference reinforcement learning algorithm for the intelligent tracking control of uncertain autonomous surface vehicles with collision avoidance. The proposed control algorithm combines a conventional…
Recent advances in deep reinforcement learning (RL) have demonstrated its potential to learn complex robotic manipulation tasks. However, RL still requires the robot to collect a large amount of real-world experience. To address this…
Rather than traditional position control, impedance control is preferred to ensure the safe operation of industrial robots programmed from demonstrations. However, variable stiffness learning studies have focused on task performance rather…
Autonomous free-flyers play a critical role in intravehicular tasks aboard the International Space Station (ISS), where their precise docking under sensing noise, small actuation mismatches, and environmental variability remains a…
In recent years, imitation learning (IL) has been widely used in industry as the core of autonomous vehicle (AV) planning modules. However, previous IL works show sample inefficiency and low generalisation in safety-critical scenarios, on…
Future Mars missions will require advanced guidance, navigation, and control algorithms for the powered descent phase to target specific surface locations and achieve pinpoint accuracy (landing error ellipse $<$ 5 m radius). The latter…