Related papers: Architecting Autonomy for Safe Microgravity Free-F…
This article presents a path-following control law for autonomous orbital maintenance of small body missions. The control law is robust, stable, and capable of controlling only the orbital geometry, allowing the spacecraft to operate with…
Collision-free path planning is an essential requirement for autonomous exploration in unknown environments, especially when operating in confined spaces or near obstacles. This study presents an autonomous exploration technique using a…
Ensuring the functional safety of motion planning modules in autonomous vehicles remains a critical challenge, especially when dealing with complex or learning-based software. Online verification has emerged as a promising approach to…
In this paper we present an overview of the methods and systems that give rise to a flying robotic system capable of autonomous inspection, surveying, comprehensive multi-modal mapping and inventory tracking of construction sites with high…
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,…
Deploying large, complex space structures is of great interest to the modern scientific world as it can provide new capabilities in obtaining scientific, communicative, and observational information. However, many theoretical mission…
The past years have shown a remarkable growth in use-cases for micro aerial vehicles (MAVs). Conceivable indoor applications require highly robust environment perception, fast reaction to changing situations, and stable navigation, but…
In recent years, consumer-grade UAVs have been widely adopted by first responders. In general, they are operated manually, which requires trained pilots, especially in unknown GNSS-denied environments and in the vicinity of structures.…
We present a solution to the problem of fairly planning a fleet of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that have different missions and operators, such that no one operator unfairly gets to finish its missions early at the expense of others -…
Autonomous inspection of large geographical areas is a central requirement for efficient hazard detection and disaster management in future cyber-physical systems such as smart cities. In this regard, exploiting unmanned aerial vehicle…
Sloshing Platform for In-Orbit Controller Experimentation is an ambitious, student run mission to design and fly a cubesat to study fluid sloshing in spacecraft. The project will examine zero-g propellant sloshing from an experimental…
As access to space and robotic autonomy capabilities move forward, there is simultaneously a growing interest in deploying large, complex space structures to provide new on-orbit capabilities. New space-borne observatories, large orbital…
The robotics community is increasingly interested in autonomous aerial transportation. Unmanned aerial vehicles with suspended payloads have advantages over other systems, including mechanical simplicity and agility, but pose great…
A fundamental capability for On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM) is inspection of the vehicle to be serviced, or the structure being assembled. This research assumes autonomous slewing to maintain situational awareness of…
Recently, a practical and publicly accessible satellite standard called the SmallSat has amplified public involvement in orbital research. This allows for flexible and efficient deployments of impactful low-earth-orbit experiments that…
Assistive free-flyer robots autonomously caring for future crewed outposts -- such as NASA's Astrobee robots on the International Space Station (ISS) -- must be able to detect day-to-day interior changes to track inventory, detect and…
In this paper, the trajectory planning problem for autonomous rendezvous and docking between a controlled spacecraft and a tumbling target is addressed. The use of a variable planning horizon is proposed in order to construct an appropriate…
Autonomous navigation for nano-scale unmanned aerial vehicles (nano-UAVs) is governed by extreme Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) constraints (with the weight < 50 g and sub-100 mW onboard processor), distinguishing it fundamentally from…
The miniaturization of electronics, sensors and actuators has enabled the growing use of CubeSats and sub-20 kg spacecraft. Their reduced mass and volume has the potential to translate into significant reductions in required propellant and…
This paper presents the design concept, modeling and motion planning solution for the aerial robotic chain. This design represents a configurable robotic system of systems, consisting of multi-linked micro aerial vehicles that…