2021 Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium
2021 Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium
Distributed Spacecraft Ad Hoc Communication
Distributed Spacecraft Ad Hoc Communication
PROJECT NUMBER: 35 | AUTHOR: Peter Hall, Computer Science and David Thompson, Mechanical Engineering
MENTOR: Qi Han, Computer Science
ABSTRACT
Through a team of small spacecraft a system of surveillance can be constructed to monitor time varying and geographically distributed phenomena. Currently, commands are issued from Earth to control all spacecraft and data is transmitted the opposite direction in a similar manner. This creates difficulty in controlling swarms of small spacecraft farther away from the surface. A redistribution of communication and control can solve this problem. This redistribution can allow spacecraft to realistically cooperate and communicate without the need for constant communication with Earth. This project aims to develop such a framework for the integration of communication and controls as an enabling technology for NASA to effectively be able to deploy swarms of small unmanned spacecraft.
PRESENTATION
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Peter Hall is a second-year Computer Science major on the Data Science track with hopes to get his Cyber Security Certificate. Peter is passionate about machine learning and statistics. Peter hopes to continue after his bachelor’s and get a Masters degree in Computer Science. Outside of school Peter is an avid enjoyer of music and participates in Drum and Bugle Corps International during his summers.
David Thompson is a second-year undergraduate studying mechanical engineering and is pursuing the field of programming and hardware interface. David hopes to get an internship and/or job with a contractor working for a naval base through the smart scholar or NRIEP applications. David’s other affiliations with the Colorado school of mines are club baseball and sigma nu gamma eta.
There were a lot of different tests that you performed as part of this project. If you had to do it over, would you have set up some of the tests differently, or in a different order?
I think that the early ad hoc tests were valuable to inform the direction we needed to take with the future tests. Given the information we had at the time, I think that they exposed several problems with our procedure and gave us new information to inform our future test design. For the drone tests I would have liked to plan them a little more carefully, specifically to control for variables such as the weather and the immediate surroundings to the drone.
I really like this project. I think it is top-notch. What specifically is the target spacecraft this was designed for? Just curious.
This procedure can be applied to most small spacecraft. It has applications in terrestrial satellites, as well as future small spacecraft that could explore other areas of our solar system. The project aims to open the door for the use of these swarms of spacecraft that operate outside of where it is practical to have every command issued from earth.