IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - January 2020 - 50

Glue Technologies for Space Systems: An Introduction to a New AESS Technical Panel
Table 1.

(Continued )
Founder member

Please, explain the reason why did
you decide to join the panel

Please, express your personal
feeling about which outcomes do
you expect in the near future from
the panel activities

Propulsion Lab, Pasadena,
CA, IEEE Senior Member

focusing on one specific capability,
and do not consider its interactions
with other functions in the signal
processing and data flow chain, and
with its environment. This
parochial view sometimes impairs
the efficiency and the utility of that
capability in operations. System
engineering and architecture are
after-thoughts in many cases, and
the efforts are mostly qualitative/
process-oriented, and are
empirical, hands-on, and pragmatic
in nature. The "glue technologies"
panel can help to advocate the
importance of end-to-end system
considerations in the early stage of
the R&D efforts.
In the past few decades,
communications and navigation
systems have developed along
separate paths. Now there are very
good communication radios and
systems, and there are very good
Earth-based navigation
infrastructure and systems, but
they are separated. For robotic and
human explorations beyond Earth,
e.g. Moon and Mars, it is desirable
to establish a low-complexity relay
infrastructure (with a small number
of orbiters) that provides integrated
communications and navigation
services to the visiting spacecraft.
The low-complexity integrated
communications and navigation
approach can also be useful for
Earth's "GPS-denied" applications,
and for GPS-augmentation in urban
canyon environments. This panel
can help to promote the system
concept of integrated
communications and navigation for
Earth and beyond Earth's space
applications.

statistical analysis, probability
inference, and optimization
methods in system analysis and
trade, especially in the early stage
of system design and architecture.
This would facilitate infusion of
advance technologies into space
system operations.
For integrated communications
and navigation, this panel should
promote new signal structures and
signal processing methods that are
useful for both communications
and navigation. This would enable
low-complexity planetary relay
network infrastructure, and greatly
reduce users' burden in terms of
Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) in
communications and navigation.

I am a member of the IEEE Signal
Processing Society, being my
background in the area of image
and video processing. What I find
particularly interesting in this panel

My hope for this panel is to foster
the interdisciplinary dimension of
scientific research, both at the
foundation and application level,
involving young and enthusiast

Nicola Conci, University of
Trento, Italy, IEEE Member

50

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JANUARY 2020
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