AE 590 Seminar Speaker: Steve Ulrich - AUTONOMOUS SPACECRAFT ROBOTICS TECHNOLOGIES FOR PROXIMITY OPERATIONS

Abstract:
The growing interest in on-orbit servicing, active debris removal, and spacecraft inspection is driving the development of increasingly capable autonomous spacecraft robotics technologies. This talk will present recent research activities at Carleton University’s Spacecraft Robotics Lab (SRL) toward enabling autonomous spacecraft proximity operations with uncooperative and dynamically challenging targets. The presentation will highlight three complementary research thrusts: vision and perception for robust relative navigation and pose estimation; guidance and control for safe, uncertainty-aware autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations; and space robotics for autonomous interaction with spacecraft and other orbital assets. Particular emphasis will be placed on the integration of these technologies into complete autonomous systems, bridging algorithm development, hardware implementation, and experimental validation. Results from the SRL’s SPOT spacecraft robotics testbed will be showcased through experimental videos and the talk will conclude with ongoing research directions toward more capable, robust, and autonomous spacecraft robotic systems for future on-orbit servicing and space operations.

Bio:
Steve Ulrich is Professor of Space Systems Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Carleton University and Founding Director of the Spacecraft Robotics Laboratory. He received his B.Eng. and M.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Université de Sherbrooke (2004 and 2006) and his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Carleton University (2012). From 2006 to 2008, he was Spacecraft GN&C Research Engineer with NGC Aerospace Ltd, where he led the development of the attitude perturbation estimation system for the European Space Agency’s PROBA-2 spacecraft. In 2013, as Postdoctoral Associate with the Space Systems Laboratory at MIT, he made key contributions to vision-driven control systems that were flight-tested on ISS-SPHERES during Expeditions 34 and 35. Prof. Ulrich’s research interests include computer vision, GN&C, and robotics applied to spacecraft rendezvous, proximity operations, and formation flying. Some of his recent contributions were flight-tested on ISS-Astrobee during Expedition 71.

From 2014 to 2022 he was a member of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Technical Committee and is currently a member of the IAF Astrodynamics Technical Committee and the AAS Space Flight Mechanics Technical Committee. He is an Associate Fellow of AIAA, senior member of AAS and IEEE, and Associate Editor for the Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics and The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences.