Aerospace Engineering Brown Bag Lecture Series, ft Rohan Patel and ​Sam Winegardner

The April 16 Aerospace Engineering Brown Bag Lecture featured Rohan Patel and ​Sam Winegardner
Rohan Patel presented
"Applying Machine Learning to the Angles-Only Initial Orbit Determination Problem"
As the number of satellites, and amount of debris, in Earth’s orbit continue to dramatically increase further developments in Space Situational Awareness are critical to responsible and safe use of near-Earth space. This presentation will focus on a data-driven approach to the initial orbit determination problem. In particular, development of a machine learning pipeline for real-time initial orbit determination from optical telescope data will be discussed. A convolutional neural network was trained to accept a series of inertially mapped orbits as features and outputted Keplerian orbital elements as labels. The created model was evaluated using both synthetic and real data collected at the Georgia Tech Space Object Research Telescope (GT-SORT).
Sam Winegardner presented
"Development of a Soft Robotics Tensegrity Rover for Planetary Exploration"
Attained from the term tensional integrity, tensegrity describes a system comprised of isolated components under compression within a tensile network. These tensile forces help stabilize the structure, even when the compression elements experience buckling. Because they are generally lightweight and able to withstand high velocity impacts, tensegrity systems present an interesting possibility of adopting the concept for planetary landing and exploration applications. As a unique and exciting approach towards designing more efficient and cost-effective planetary rovers, the tensegrity rover could be implemented for future missions to Mars, asteroids, and more. This presentation features highlights of the engineering efforts involved in the design and development of a system which enables the tensegrity lattice to move robotically.
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About the Series:
The Brown Bag Lecture Series is a tradition that gives select AE undergrads and grad students a unique opportunity to share their research before an audience that includes both their peers and their academic mentors and advisors.
www.ae.gatech.edu/brown-bag-l...