Avijit Banerjee

Avijit Banerjee, Jakub Haluska, Sumeet G. Satpute et al.

In this article, a floating robotic emulation platform for a virtual demonstration of satellite motion in space is presented. The robotic platform design is characterized by its friction-less, levitating, yet planar motion over a hyper-smooth surface. The robotic platform, integrated with sensor and actuator units, is fully designed and manufactured from the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Team at Luleå University of Technology. A detailed design description along with the mathematical modeling describing the platform's dynamic motion is formulated. Finally, the proposed design is validated in extensive simulation studies, while the overall test bed experimental setup, as well as the vehicle hardware and software architectures, are discussed in detail. Furthermore, the entire design, including 3D printing CAD model and different testbed elements, is provided in an open-source repository and a test campaign is used to showcase its capabilities and illustrate its operations.

Akash Patel, Avijit Banerjee, Bjorn Lindqvist et al.

Mars has been a prime candidate for planetary exploration of the solar system because of the science discoveries that support chances of future habitation on this planet. Martian caves and lava tubes like terrains, which consists of uneven ground, poor visibility and confined space, makes it impossible for wheel based rovers to navigate through these areas. In order to address these limitations and advance the exploration capability in a Martian terrain, this article presents the design and control of a novel coaxial quadrotor Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV). As it will be presented, the key contributions on the design and control architecture of the proposed Mars coaxial quadrotor, are introducing an alternative and more enhanced, from a control point of view concept, when compared in terms of autonomy to Ingenuity. Based on the presented design, the article will introduce the mathematical modelling and automatic control framework of the vehicle that will consist of a linearised model of a co-axial quadrotor and a corresponding Model Predictive Controller (MPC) for the trajectory tracking. Among the many models, proposed for the aerial flight on Mars, a reliable control architecture lacks in the related state of the art. The MPC based closed loop responses of the proposed MAV will be verified in different conditions during the flight with additional disturbances, induced to replicate a real flight scenario. In order to further validate the proposed control architecture and prove the efficacy of the suggested design, the introduced Mars coaxial quadrotor and the MPC scheme will be compared to a PID-type controller, similar to the Ingenuity helicopter's control architecture for the position and the heading.