Christopher R. Anderson

Michael A. Tsao, Hau T. Ngo, Robert D. Corsaro et al.

This paper presents the development of an in situ measurement system known as the Debris Resistive Acoustic Grid Orbital Navy/NASA Sensor (DRAGONS). The DRAGONS system is designed to detect impacts caused by particles ranging from 50 micrometers to 1 mm at both low-earth and geostationary orbits. DRAGONS utilizes a combination of low-cost sensor technologies to facilitate accurate measurements and approximations of the size, velocity, and angle of impacting micrometeoroids and orbital debris (MMOD). Two thin layers of kapton sheets with resistive traces are used to detect the changes in resistance that are directly proportional to the impacting force caused by the fast traveling particles. Four polyvinylidene fluoride-based sensors are positioned in the back of each kapton sheet to measure acoustic strain caused by an impact. The electronic hardware module that controls all operations employs a low-power, modular, and compact design that enables it to be installed as a low-resource load on a host satellite. Laboratory results demonstrate that in addition to having the ability to detect an impact event, the DRAGONS system can determine impact location, speed, and angle of impact with a mean error of 1.4 cm, 0.2 km/s, and 5°. The DRAGONS system could be deployed as an add-on subsystem of a payload to enable a real-time, in-depth study of the properties of MMOD.

Christopher R. Anderson, Louise A. Dennis

An overview of the process to develop a safety case for an autonomous robot deployment on a nuclear site in the UK is described and a safety case for a hypothetical robot incorporating AI is presented. This forms a first step towards a deployment, showing what is possible now and what may be possible with development of tools. It forms the basis for further discussion between nuclear site licensees, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), industry and academia.

Bharath Keshavamurthy, Yaguang Zhang, Christopher R. Anderson et al.

In this paper, we discuss the design of a sliding-correlator channel sounder for 28 GHz propagation modeling on the NSF POWDER testbed in Salt Lake City, UT. Beam-alignment is mechanically achieved via a fully autonomous robotic antenna tracking platform, designed using commercial off-the-shelf components. Equipped with an Apache Zookeeper/Kafka managed fault-tolerant publish-subscribe framework, we demonstrate tracking response times of 27.8 ms, in addition to superior scalability over state-of-the-art mechanical beam-steering systems. Enhanced with real-time kinematic correction streams, our geo-positioning subsystem achieves a 3D accuracy of 17 cm, while our principal axes positioning subsystem achieves an average accuracy of 1.1 degrees across yaw and pitch movements. Finally, by facilitating remote orchestration (via managed containers), uninhibited rotation (via encapsulation), and real-time positioning visualization (via Dash/MapBox), we exhibit a proven prototype well-suited for V2X measurements.