The Timeline

From a trustworthy deterministic baseline to risk-aware inspection under uncertainty — where the work has been, and where it is going.

Foundation
Nominal guidance & control
Done

The full inspection orbit flies, end to end

The deterministic baseline already flies the complete inspection trajectory — the fully-actuated base and the arm holding the camera on target. This is the ground the risk work perturbs.

A worked example
Done

The mission-clock investigation, closed

Question → pre-registered prediction → measurement → conclusion. Two candidate mechanisms were eliminated by exact-zero tests before the surviving explanation was accepted.

Formal verification
Ongoing

Stability mathematics sealed in Lean 4

Machine-checked against the community library, each proof shipping with a paper derivation: the determinant identity, the Lyapunov comparison theorem, LaSalle's invariance principle, and the passivity identity.

Nominal lockdown
The gate before risk
Active

Is the baseline trustworthy enough to perturb?

The mission-clock case is closed; the along-track velocity bias is the sharpened open question. Nothing uncertain is introduced until the deterministic baseline is locked.

◆ You are here · July 2026
Risk phases
Phase 0
Active

Foundation — what breaks first, and how we measure "worse"

The risk metrics that make degradation measurable. Three of four are implemented and verified.

Phase A · core methodology chapter
In review

CVaR view scoring

Does risk-aware view scoring beat nominal and expected-value scoring under camera-pose uncertainty? The derivation is drafted and under review.

Phase B
Upcoming

State uncertainty

How should guidance behave when the state estimate itself is uncertain? Detailed after Phase A's gate.

Phase C
Upcoming

Actuation uncertainty

Can the controller derate itself risk-awarely when its own actuation is uncertain? After Phase B's gate.

Phases D / E
Upcoming

Objective extensions

Reconstruction confidence and probabilistic margins as planning objectives. Research-first.

Contribution
The thesis
Goal

Risk-aware active inspection under uncertainty

Planning and control for a free-flying space manipulator under state, actuation, and camera-pose uncertainty — measuring what caution costs and what it buys.

Two tracks run alongside and never gate the main line: the seven-degree-of-freedom extension and the Lean 4 formalization of the stability mathematics.