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正在对几乎所有行业产生积极影响，除了航天行业。我的长期研究愿景是为航天工业提供新的控制技术，这些技术将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。在未来5年的周期内，我的短期目标是为无人机开发预测性导航和控制技术，以支持太空探索。机器人空间探索在历史上使用了各种探索工具，包括轨道飞行器、着陆器、漫游者和撞击器/穿透器。然而，我们以高空间分辨率覆盖大面积地形的能力一直受到行星漫游者的短距离和慢速的限制。如果机器人探险者有足够的覆盖能力对土壤进行调查和采样，那么新兴的太空采矿行业有朝一日可能会提供地球上无法获取或获得的宝贵矿物。近年来商用无人机行业的急剧增长证明，无人机有潜力通过快速有效地覆盖广大地区，大大扩展机器人探索的范围。这项拟议的研究计划将赋予加拿大航空航天工业部署和控制无人机的技术，作为探索新的外星物体的一种手段。与地球上的无人机不同，地外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、未绘制的磁场、人类/无人机无法互动以及缺乏全球定位系统，这些都使得商业无人机解决方案不适合用于地外使用。我计划开发新的无人机控制技术，可以在没有任何人工干预的情况下适应和预测不断变化的条件。我将设计为星际探索优化的无人机，开发预测控制器，使用分数阶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为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测试平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、动手操作的硬件测试平台，可以在受控环境中评估无人机设计和控制策略，为高素质人员（HQP）提供独特而有价值的培训机会。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，或者直接作为无人机和空间技术的领导者进入行业。

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.