Talk by Dr. Masahiro Ono (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory) on "Applications of ML/Optimization for Robotic Space Exploration"

[Title] Applications of ML/Optimization for Robotic Space Exploration
[Abstract]
One of NASA’s priorities in the next few decades will be the search for past and present extraterrestrial life in the Solar System. However, potentially habitable environments, such as the underground cave systems on Mars or the subsurface ocean of Europa, Enceladus, and Titan, are often inaccessible for manually controlled spacecraft due to the unavailability of orbital reconnaissance and limited communication. Hence, unprecedented level of autonomy would be required to explore these destinations. In this talk, I will provide an overview of the technical challenges for future robotic space exploration, as well as a few examples of the promising applications of ML and optimization techniques for enhancing robotic autonomy in space. The topics will include optimal path planning for Mars rovers, ML-based terrain classification and risk-aware planning for resilient spacecraft autonomy.