VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION OF SAFE AUTONOMOUS GNC SYSTEMS FOR LAUNCHERS

VALORS's primary goal is to develop Validation & Verification approaches for advanced GNC functions in launchers.

PIONEER CENTER FOR ACCELERATING P2X MATERIALS DISCOVERY 🡥

The project strives to shorten the discovery time of materials by developing and integrating a series of scientific and technological modules such as scientific instruments, mobile manipulators/robots and machine learning models.

My main task is to design and implement imitation learning and model-based reinforcement learning algorithms for the control of a Unitree humanoid robot with dexterous hands. We gather real hand motion data from a VR and VICON set and train the RL agents in Isaacs Sim.

SMART LAUNCHER ENABLERS

SURE's primary goal was to identify, design and develop (up to TRL 4) on-board avionics and GNC capabilities for autonomous, safe and robust atmospheric flights of launch vehicles.

My main contributions to the project was identifying the need of and developing the first on-board safety filter for launchers. This capability based on Control Barrier Functions allowed the reduction of dispersions of extreme cases, enforced safety-related constraints and facilitated their monitoring for flight termination.

MARITIME INTERNET OF THINGS 🡥

The MARIOT project had the objective of developing the first commercial VDES satellite constellation network to improve maritime safety and navigation in the arctic and other naval waters.

I contributed with LEOP, orbital and collision avoidance analyses, and developed an end-to-end Python simulation environment for system verification and communication throughput validation.

MARIOT-1 satellite was launched on 3rd of January 2023.

DRONE FLIGHT TERMINATION SYSTEM

Design, construction and testing of an automated flight termination system for big drones (>7kg). This includes the implementation of neural-networks for 1) classification of landable ground areas and 2) structural vibration monitoring; and 3) the formulation of a decision function to terminate the flight. Airborne tests were conducted, as well as lab tests using VICON motion capture system on a DJI M800 to gather nominal and faulty vibration data.