Research Tasks

The project will develop, test, and validate a plug-and-play Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) architecture using modular field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) hardware capable of automatically synthesizing reconfigurable control laws for spacecraft, rovers, manipulators, and other robotic platforms, both at a systems level and at sub-systems level.

The JPL task will integrate, test, and validate the plug-and-play adaptable hardware controllers to robotic software architectures and platforms. In phase I, we will develop requirements for using adaptable controllers on at least two robotic platforms. In phase II, we will adapt (integrate, test and validate) these controllers to two robotic platforms: a manipulator arm and a rover. This work will leverage NASA's Coupled-Layer Architecture for Robotics Autonomy (CLARAty) as the software integration platform for the adaptable controller algorithms. We will demonstrate the degree of modularity and adaptability of these controllers on the above platforms.

JPL has a co-investigation role for this work, which is led by Kalmanje Krishnakumar of NASA Ames Research Center.