Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The proposed research "Design, Dynamics and Control for Smart Spacecraft" will focus on the development of the next generation of low cost, autonomous and intelligent spacecraft. The research will be conducted under four main areas: 1) Harnessing Environmental Forces for Smart Spacecraft Control, 2) Robust Control or Fault Tolerant Control and Prognosis Methodologies for Smart Spacecraft, and 3) Novel Actuators for Smart Spacecraft Control, and 4) Smart Spacecraft Design, Miniaturization Hardware Innovation. The focus areas of each objective are interrelated and enabled by the common infrastructure, yet are sufficiently distinct that program risks are minimized. The scope of the research programs has been chosen to match the breadth of Dr. Kumar's experience and expertise. The first objective involves harnessing environmental forces efficiently for spacecraft control (simple called "Propellant-less Spacecraft Control") while the second objective focuses on smart spacecraft subsystems, especially, attitude and orbit control subsystems (AOCS) that are prone to failures, with decision-making capability to meet highly demanding mission requirements and objectives. This decision-making capability caters for autonomous fault diagnosis, prognosis, and repair operations. The missions include autonomous on-orbit servicing (i.e., inspection, repair, refuel, upgrade, and assembly of satellites in space), exploration of asteroids, and search for Extraterrestrial-life. On the other hand, the third objective involves the development of novel actuators for spacecraft control including fluid rings, tethers and MEMS (piezoelectric). The final objective involves innovative spacecraft design, integration of artificial intelligence algorithms into spacecraft hardware and hardware-in-loop testing and simulation on high fidelity system models and spacecraft formation platforms available in Dr. Kumar's Space Systems Dynamics and Control (SSDC) laboratory and Artificial Intelligence for Aerospace Systems (AIAS) laboratory. The proposed research will lead to the development of intelligent high performance spacecraft for future space missions as well as training of a large number of HQPs (6 PhD students, 9 MASc students, and 4 Undergraduate research assistants) in the most demanding areas of system modelling and simulation, big data analytics, sensors, software development, and hardware design.