Topics

Please find below the topics of the conference.

Advances in Sensors and Actuators

Papers are encouraged to describe new hardware developments and promising new technologies. Papers may cover component developments, equipment developments and new test results. Papers are also encouraged on requirement evolution and trends, such as the use components not rad-hard or high-rel in a dedicated “designed-for-space” equipment. This session will cover all types of sensors used in GNC, such as gyroscopes, accelerometers, inertial measurement units, high bandwidth angular rate sensors, star trackers, Sun sensors, Earth sensors, magnetometers, navigation cameras (visible, IR, multi-spectral, 3D), as well as actuators, magnetic torquers & reaction wheels.

Advances in Control

The session contemplates advanced control technologies driven by demanding and complex space missions. Papers should focus on demonstrating how advanced techniques (such as advanced modelling, analysis, control, and optimization techniques) can be used for given applications and quantifying their benefits at system level in terms of performance and stability margins, GNC design, development, validation and verification process. This session covers as well simultaneous co-design between GNC and other disciplines (propulsion, aerodynamics, structures).

Current Missions

The Current Space Missions session presents the GNC detailed design aiming at answering the mission’s key requirements and challenges. Current missions are those presently in Phases B, C or D. Papers should highlight especially for innovative GNC concepts, architectures design, describing challenging trade-offs and criticalities.

Future Missions

The Future Space Missions session presents the GNC preliminary design, and their key requirements and challenges, together with how these have been addressed. This session targets pre-Phase A or Phase A missions. Papers are encouraged specially to address missions with innovative GNC designs driven by challenging demands and requirements.

In-Orbit Experiences and Demonstrators

This session presents the results of in-orbit experiences of GNC systems and hardware. Emphasis is placed on in flight performance validation and demonstration of new techniques as well as anomaly description, recovery and workarounds. The session also covers experience and lessons learnt from field tests. The session also addresses the development, design and verification of novel demonstrator capabilities at all phases of development.

High Performance Pointing Systems

This session is focused on high accuracy and high stability pointing systems (in the range of the arc seconds or below) typically needed for emerging science missions or high-resolution imaging satellites. The session will address in particular pointing error engineering, active disturbance isolation, line of sight stabilization, calibration, filtering and control techniques and AOCS architectural design with sensors and actuators to cope with very high pointing requirements.

GNC for Future Space Transportation Systems

This session addresses the challenges of GNC design and development for space transportation that includes launch, orbital, and re-entry vehicles. This session is focused on the GNC design, development, testing and operations for any space vehicle devoted to space transportation (including the case of manned missions). Papers addressing the specificities of micro-launchers and reusable launchers are especially encouraged.

GNC for Small Body and Planetary Missions

This session addresses the challenges of GNC systems for missions to small celestial bodies and interplanetary exploration missions, including landers. This session is focused on the GNC design, development, testing and operations for the exploration of the Moon, planetary missions and missions to asteroids and comets. Core topics for this session are autonomous and semi-autonomous relative navigation strategies, close-proximity operations definition and planning, autonomous interplanetary navigation and orbit insertion, aero-assisted manoeuvres, and entry descent and landing.

Trends in AL/ML for AOCS/GNC Systems

Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and specifically in Machine Learning have the potential to complement and augment the GNC system architectures with new techniques for modelling and system identification, filtering, control and failure detection. In addition, an enhancement of on-board autonomy can be envisaged through AI techniques. This session discusses the current trends in the integration of AI within GNC systems, applied to tasks such as spacecraft stabilization and control, image processing (e.g. feature recognition and tracking), failure diagnostics and prognostics, health monitoring and management systems, etc. In addition, papers are encouraged to discuss how AI can be employed to augment the traditional design and verification process, methods and tools of GNC systems.

Sensors Data Fusion and Autonomous Navigation

This session is devoted to autonomous navigation from conceptual design to hardware implementation, and testing. The list of topics covered includes: autonomous orbit determination (based in particular on GNSS systems in Earth orbits), autonomous vision-based, infrared, and multi-spectral navigation, covering planetary landing (absolute and relative navigation), interplanetary navigation (e.g. encounter with small bodies or planetary swing-by optimization), rendezvous navigation, hybrid navigation techniques and multi-sensors data fusion tailored to space missions, and associated avionics implementation solutions.

Space Mission AOCS/GNC Validation and Verification

This session intends to drag the attention on one of the most demanding and critical aspects of the AOCS/GNC development cycle. The subsystem validation and verification have the dual challenge to follow the advanced control techniques evolutions by ensuring reliability, representativeness and minimizing the risks, being at same time efficient and agile for industrial implementation minimizing the required effort and cost. Papers are therefore encouraged to cover the innovation in verification tools, analysis/verification techniques and overall verification sequence/approach

On board autonomous AOCS/GNC

This session addresses the specific challenges related to design, implementation and verification of autonomous functions on board modern AOCS/GNC systems. In particular, the session addresses the application of on-board autonomy to enable close proximity operations, rendezvous and docking (e.g. in the context of debris removal, on-orbit servicing or in-orbit assembly missions), electric orbit raising, autonomous collision avoidance in LEO, and constellation management. Papers addressing advanced FDIR solutions as well as of techniques that contribute to increase the reliability and availability of space systems (e.g. fault-tolerant control) are also encouraged.

On board autonomous optimised Guidance

Optimization-based methods application ranges from launchers, planetary landers, satellites, rendezvous and docking, close-proximity operations, distributed satellite formations. Papers are sought to provide novel approaches to embedded optimization, novel capabilities in the field of trajectory planning and control. Topics of interest include latest results ranging from embedded optimisation techniques (successive convex, interior point, nonlinear, quadratic, linear programs), model predictive control, system level synthesis as well as robust control. This includes as well analysis results from Integral Quadratic Constraints, set invariance, reachablity and others techniques providing guaranteed properties of the algorithms. Papers describing results on new embedded optmisation analysis and synthesis techniques on illustrative and realistic space control problems are strongly encouraged.

Image Processing and Vision-Based Navigation

This session addresses the specific challenges related to design, implementation and verification of the image processing and navigation chain in vision-based systems. Detailed topics include tools and techniques for image processing, model matching, feature extraction, feature tracking, shape reconstruction and all other functions used in the application of vision-based navigation to rendezvous & docking and close-proximity operations, to planetary landing, reusable launchers, and small Solar system body missions. This session will also address the challenges for the avionics subsystem development and the avionics architecture solutions for the navigation processing chain.

Session on invitation for Future Directions in AOCS/GNC

The GNC V&V seminar workshop organised jointly by NASA, CNES, DLR, ONERA and ESA since September 2020 has allowed to gather a large number of talks to exchange experience and information in Validation and Verification (V&V) techniques for Space Guidance, Navigation and Controls (GNC) Systems, and Attitude and Orbit Control Systems (AOCS). After more than two years of seminars, the session will be dedicated to share with the ESA GNC Conference participants the major outcomes of the workshop and seminars series.

Model Based AOCS/GNC engineering and related tools

This session addresses exchanges on practical experiences, lessons learned and novel way forward ideas from applications of model-based engineering techniques in the area of Space Guidance, Navigation and Controls (GNC) Systems, and Attitude and Orbit Control Systems (AOCS). Topics related to physical digital models, data governance and sharing between system and subsystems, methods and tools, are expected to be presented for different type of missions.

Small Satellites and Cubesat AOCS/GNC (hardware and subsystems)

Small Satellites approach is an increasingly popular format for space missions. A range of MiniSat/NanoSat/CubeSat missions are being defined and developed for variety of applications (IOD/IOV, Science and Exploration companions, Earth Observation, Communications…). Some of these missions are becoming more and more challenging in terms of AOCS requirements and AOCS units developments while maintaining challenging targets in terms of development time and cost. This session aims to present some of the related innovations and solutions proposed specifically for these Small Satellites and Cubesat mission.