Predictive Drone Control for Interplanetary Exploration

由于缺乏空间遗产和信心，先进的导航和制造技术对几乎所有行业都产生了积极影响，但航天工业除外。 我的长期研究愿景是为航天工业提供新的控制技术，以降低航天系统的成本和设计周期，从而使航天工业更容易进入。 我在下一个5年周期的短期目标是为无人机开发预测导航和控制技术，以支持太空探索。 机器人空间探索历来使用各种探索工具，包括轨道器、着陆器、漫游车和撞击器/穿透器。 然而，我们以高空间分辨率覆盖大面积地形的能力仅限于行星漫游者的短距离和低速。 新兴的太空采矿业有一天可以提供地球上无法获得或无法获得的宝贵矿物，前提是机器人探险家有足够的覆盖能力来调查和采样土壤。 无人机有潜力通过其快速有效覆盖广阔区域的能力大大扩展机器人探索的范围，近年来商用无人机行业的急剧增长就证明了这一点。 这项拟议的研究计划将使加拿大航空航天工业拥有部署和控制无人机的技术，作为探索新的外星天体的手段。 与地球上的无人机不同，外星无人机将面临许多挑战。 不可预测的天气、未知的障碍物、不同的空气密度/成分、未映射的磁场、无法进行人/无人机交互以及缺乏全球定位系统，使得商业无人机解决方案不适合在地外使用。 我计划开发新的无人机控制技术，以适应和预测不断变化的条件，而无需任何人为干预。 我将设计为行星际探索优化的无人机，开发预测控制器，使用分数微积分来预测非线性动力学和硬件故障，并开发基于漫游者和轨道器测量的无人机导航系统。 有了这些技术，加拿大航天局及其工业伙伴将能够向国际空间探索伙伴关系提供具有成本效益的探索技术。 我的学生将使用我的室内无人机试验台来评估我们无人机技术的适用性。 这个独特的设施提供了一个安全的，动手的，硬件测试平台，以评估无人机设计和控制策略在受控环境中，提供了一个独特的和宝贵的培训机会，为高素质人员（HQP）。 当通过我的工业研究主席与我强大的工业合作网络相结合时，这些HQP将获得继续进行太空探索技术学术研究所需的技能，或直接进入无人机和空间技术领域的领导者。

Advanced navigation and manufacturing technologies are positively impacting almost every industry except the space industry due to a lack of space heritage and confidence. My long-term research vision is to empower the space industry with new control technologies that will reduce the cost and design cycle for space systems, leading to a more accessible space industry. My short-term goal in the next 5-year cycle is to develop predictive navigation and control technologies for drones in support of space exploration. Robotic space exploration has historically used a variety of exploration tools, including orbiters, landers, rovers and impactors / penetrators. However, our ability to cover wide areas of terrain at high spatial resolution has been limited to the short range and slow speed of planetary rovers. The fledgling space mining industry could one day provide valuable minerals that are not accessible or available on Earth, provided robotic explorers have adequate coverage capability to survey and sample the soil. Drones have the potential to greatly extend the reach of robotic exploration through their ability to cover vast areas quickly and efficiently, as evidenced by the dramatic growth of the commercial drone industry in recent years. This proposed research program will empower the Canadian aerospace industry with technologies to deploy and control flying drones as a means of exploring new extraterrestrial bodies. Unlike drones for Earth, extraterrestrial drones will face numerous challenges. Unpredictable weather, unknown obstacles, differing air density / composition, unmapped magnetic fields, inability for human/drone interaction and the lack of a global positioning system make commercial drone solutions unsuitable for extra-terrestrial use. I plan to develop new drone control technologies that adapt to and predict changing conditions without any human interaction. I will design drones optimized for interplanetary exploration, develop predictive controllers that use fractional calculus to anticipate nonlinear dynamics and hardware failures and develop a drone navigation system based on measurements from rovers and orbiters. Armed with these technologies, the Canadian Space Agency and their industrial partners will be able to offer cost effective exploration technologies to international space exploration partnerships. My students will evaluate the suitability of our drone technologies using my indoor drone testbed. This unique facility offers a safe, hands-on, hardware testbed to evaluate drone designs and control strategies in a controlled environment, providing a unique and valuable training opportunity for Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP). When combined with my robust network of industrial collaborations through my Industrial Research Chair, these HQP will gain the skills required to continue with academic research in space exploration technologies, or enter industry directly as leaders in drone and space technology.