Our first Frontiers Talk of 2025 was On Orbit Object Transportation with Spacecraft Swarms with Sidh Sikka! The talk featured a bi-level optimization framework for orbital transport, with fast convex solutions and evolutionary algorithms.

For this talk, our speaker was be Sidh Sikka. Sidh is a first-year Ph.D. student in Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Purdue University, where he works under the guidance of Prof. Shaoshuai Mou, director of the Autonomous & Intelligent Multi-agent Systems Lab and co-director of the Institute for Control, Optimization and Networks (ICON). His research focuses on autonomous swarm robotic systems for in-space assembly and manufacturing and servicing operations.

Recording available here:

Abstract

​As the space economy grows, there is a pressing need for flexible, reliable on-orbit transportation to support both commercial and scientific missions. In this talk, I will introduce our cooperative approach to orbital transportation, in which a swarm of spacecraft agents—each securely attached to a rigid object—collaboratively transport payloads while respecting directional constraints on their control inputs. I will then describe the bi-level optimization framework we developed to address this challenge in a fuel-efficient and computationally feasible way. Specifically, the framework combines a fast convex-optimization “inner” problem with a “population-based” outer optimization layer using genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization. I will discuss how our method compares to a state-of-the-art nonlinear solver, emphasizing its advantages in convergence speed, scalability, constraint handling, and fuel usage. Finally, I will share potential future research directions for extending and enhancing this cooperative framework, including applications to more complex orbital environments and advanced multi-agent coordination strategies.

Frontiers is our invited speaker series. We invite researchers, engineers, and industry leaders working on the most interesting problems in foundational and applied AI. Check out our Events page for more info on this and other upcoming events! Want to get involved? Join our discord community here!