Astrodynamics studies the motion of human-made orbiting objects. In this research area, the group specializes on space situational awareness, orbit determination, orbit uncertainty quantification, and spacecraft attitude dynamics, determination, and control.
An important practical application of our nonlinear estimation techniques is the determination of the orbit of a space object: both a vehicle we control (ground-based navigation) or an object (debris or un-cooperative satellite) we do not control.
The dynamics and control of a vehicle’s rotational motion offers unique challenges due to the non-vectorial nature of the rotation group. We are particularly interested in determining and controlling attitude without relying on small-angle approximations that treat rotations as vectors in the local tangent space.
