Asteroid Mission Guidance and Control using Dual Quaternions

The investigation of small bodies in the Solar System such as asteroids and comets is of increasing interest to the space exploration community for scientific and security reasons. A key enabling technology is the availability to control position and attitude of spacecraft for asteroid close-proximity operations. Dynamics and control issues...

Embedded Control System for Calibrating Gas Analysers

This Thesis report will discuss the development of embedded control systems for process control (in this case for the calibration of a gas analyser). The main research question being: Which control algorithm will be able to achieve the most optimal calibration procedure? A calibration bench which will be used to create a specific condition (gas...

Enhancement of Conventional IPC Decoupling by Inclusion of an Azimuth Offset

Wind turbine technology has become one of the most attractive solutions to generate electricity as well as to cope with the global carbon emissions. Having a prospective future in terms of growing worldwide demands, it becomes more important to reduce the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCoE) of the wind turbine which is generally done by...

Guidance, Navigation, and Control for Very Small Asteroid Mitigation Missions

Airbus Defence and Space GmbH in Friedrichshafen is the project coordinator of the NEOShield-2 project whose purpose is to develop the technology needed for near-Earth object (NEO) impact prevention. This research is located within the scope of a kinetic impactor mission which typically consists of two spacecraft: impactor and observer. This...

Simulation Study on the Active Motion Compensation of an Offshore Gangway

During offshore installations in harsh sea conditions, the involved gangway system must satisfy rigorous requirements in terms of safety and accuracy. The forces resulting from the vessel motion have an extensive effect on the overall gangway structure and its lifetime. Moreover, vessel motion handicaps the operator during fine positioning of...

Reinforcement Learning Across Timescales

This project addresses a fundamental problem faced by many reinforcement learning agents. Commonly used reinforcement learning agents can be seen to have deteriorating performances at increasing frequencies, as they are unable to correctly learn the ordering of expected returns for actions that are applied. We call this the disappearing...

Cryostat Control: Real time control for a cryogenic refrigerator

In order to measure the spectrum of radio emissions from galaxies and other deep space objects, a new superconducting spectrometer, working at very cold temperatures close to the absolute zero, is developed. An advanced cooling system called a cryostat is used to cool down the spectrometer. The cool down of the cryostat involves the control of...

High-precision control for Constant Distance Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy

This Report covers the initial research into modeling the Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy (SECM) system for the purposes of high precision control. The SECM system is a microscope based around electro-chemical effects. It operates in several modes relating on degrees of conductivity of the involved elements. The control is to be based on the...

Consequences of the implementation of blockchain technology

Blockchain technology is increasingly being seen as a general purpose technology with far reaching (institutional) effects. However, the ongoing empirical blockchain discussions on these effects are unstructured, due to high complexities. Both practitioners and researchers therefore struggle to get to the core of blockchain technology...

Learning Variable Impedance Control: A Model-Based Approach Using Gaussian Processes

Modern robotic systems are increasingly expected to interact with unstructured and unpredictable environments. This has reiterated the importance of sophisticated reasoning and adaptive motor skill learning. Although low-level methodologies for sensorimotor control have been relatively well studied, constrained motion for robotic manipulators in...

Framed Space vs. Free Space

The graduation project ‘Framed space vs. Free space’ is about the differences between space free to plan by the user and controlled space by authorities in urban and landscape design. These are degrees of control on different scales. Scales in urbanism are assigned to get a grip on the complexity of the city, to understand the processes and...

Analysis of Skill Development in Manual Ramp Tracking Tasks: Using a Feedforward Pilot Model

A study is performed analyzing the behavioral adaptation of pilots in skill based ramp tracking tasks performed with pursuit display. From data analyses of previous ramp tracking experiments an indication is found that pilots who repeatedly perform the same ramp tracking task show a high level of adaptation to characteristics of the control task...