SpaceX | EPFL Graph Search

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., doing business as SpaceX, is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launch service provider and satellite communications company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. The company was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and to colonize Mars. The company manufactures the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Starship heavy-lift launch vehicles, the Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon spacecraft, the Starlink mega-constellation satellite and rocket engines. The company offers commercial satellite-based internet service via its constellation of Starlink satellites, which became the largest-ever satellite constellation in January 2020 and as of June 2023 comprised more than 4,300 small satellites in orbit. The company is also developing Starship, a fully reusable, super heavy-lift launch system for interplanetary and orbital spaceflight. On its failed first flight in April 2023, it became the largest and most powerful rocke

Constraint consistency techniques for continuous domains

Jamila Sam

Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs) are ubiquitous in computer science. Many problems, ranging from resource allocation and scheduling to fault diagnosis and design, involve constraint satisfaction as an essential component. A CSP is given by a set of variables and constraints on small subsets of these variables. It is solved by finding assignments of values to the variables such that all constraints are satisfied. In its most general form, a CSP is combinatorial and complex. In this thesis, we consider constraint satisfaction problems with variables in continuous, numerical domains. Contrary to most existing techniques, which focus on computing a single optimal solution, we address the problem of computing a compact representation of the space of all solutions that satisfy the constraints. This has the advantage that no optimization criterion has to be formulated beforehand, and that the space of possibilities can be explored systematically. In certain applications, such as diagnosis and design, these advantages are crucial. In consistency techniques, the solution space is represented by labels assigned to individual variables or combinations of variables. When the labeling is globally consistent, each label contains only those values or combinations of values which appear in at least one solution. This kind of labeling is a compact, sound and complete representation of the solution space, and can be combined with other reasoning methods. In practice, computing a globally consistent labeling is too complex. This is usually tackled in two ways. One way is to enforce consistencies locally, using propagation algorithms. This prunes the search space and hence reduces the subsequent search effort. The other way is to identify simplifying properties which guarantee that global consistency can be enforced tractably using local propagation algorithms. When constraints are represented by mathematical expressions, implementing local consistency algorithms is difficult because it requires tools for solving arbitrary systems of equations. In this thesis, we propose to approximate feasible solution regions by 2k-trees, thus providing a means of combining constraints logically rather than numerically. This representation, commonly used in computer vision and image processing, avoids using complex mathematical tools. We propose simple and stable algorithms for computing labels of arbitrary degrees of consistency using this representation. For binary constraints, it is known that simplifying convexity properties reduces the complexity of solving a CSP. These properties guarantee that local degrees of consistency are sufficient to ensure global consistency. We show how, in continuous domains, these results can be generalized to ternary and in fact arbitrary n-ary constraints. This leads to polynomial-time algorithms for computing globally consistent labels for a large class of constraint satisfaction problems with continuous variables. We describe and justify our representation of constraints and our consistency algorithms. We also give a complete analysis of the theoretical results we present. Finally, the developed techniques are illustrated using practical examples.

EPFL1995

Analytical Methods for the Study and Design of Integrated Switched Oscillators and Antennas for Mesoband Radiation

Jose Felix Vega Stavro

This thesis was carried out within the framework of a scientific cooperation project entitled “Application of High Power Electromagnetics to Human Safety” developed by the EPFL, the National University of Colombia and Los Andes University, Colombia. The project was funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) through the EPFL Centre Coopéation & Développement (CODEV). The Scientific Cooperation aimed at the study and development of techniques for the generation of high power electromagnetic signals for the disruption or preemptive activation of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) during humanitarian clearance activities. The results and conclusions of the thesis will be applied to the construction of a resonant radiator, which can be used for securing humanitarian demining operations in Colombia. The thesis is devoted to the analysis of a specific type of resonant radiators known as Switched Oscillators (SWO). An SWO is a radiator constituted by a high voltage charging circuit that drives a quarter-wave transmission line resonator connected to an antenna. An SWO can produce high-amplitude, short duration, electromagnetic fields, with a moderate bandwidth, when compared to the main resonance frequency. The outcome of the thesis can be also be used in electromagnetic compatibility applications, for the production of resonant, high power electromagnetic fields, with the aim of testing the immunity of electronic systems against Intentional Electromagnetic Interference (IEMI) attacks. The thesis is divided in three parts. The first part deals with the electrostatic design of an SWO. A method for producing an optimized design of the electrodes forming the spark gap of the SWO is presented. The method is based on the generation of a curvilinear coordinate space on which the electrodes are conformal to one of the coordinate axis of the space. Laplace equation is solved in the interelectrodic space, obtaining an analytical solution for the electrostatic distribution. Furthermore, using appropriate mathematical manipulations, we derive an analytical expression for the impedance of the transmission line formed by the proposed electrodes. The second part of the thesis is devoted to the analysis of SWOs in the frequency domain. An original analysis approach, based on the chain-parameter technique, is proposed in which the SWO and the connected antenna are described using a two-port network using which a transfer function between the input voltage and the radiated field is established. A closed form expression of the resonance frequency of the SWO is also obtained. The developed technique makes it possible to study the response of an SWO when connected to an arbitrary antenna with a frequency-dependent input impedance. The final part of the thesis presents the construction and test of an SWO prototype. The prototype design is based on the theoretical developments presented in the first two parts of the thesis. The realized SWO is experimentally characterized using different antennas. It is characterized by an input voltage of 30 kV and a resonance frequency of 433 MHz. Radiated electric fields using monopole antennas were in the order of 10 kV/m at a distance of 1.5 m. The prototype is used for testing the validity of the electrodynamic model for the analysis of SWOs connected to frequency dependent antennas. Different monopole antennas connected to the SWO are considered and the radiated fields are measured and compared with theoretical calculations. It is shown that the developed theoretical model is able to reproduce with a good accuracy the behavior of the SWO connected to a frequency dependent antenna.

EPFL2013

Nonperturbative Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime

Kamran Salehi Vaziri

Quantum Field Theory(QFT) as one of the most promising frameworks to study high energy and condensed matter physics, has been mostly developed by perturbative methods. However, perturbative methods can only capture a small island of the space of QFTs.QFT in hyperbolic space can be used to link the conformal bootstrap and massive QFT. Conformal boundary correlators also can be studied by their general properties such as unitarity, crossing symmetry and analicity. On the other hand, by sending the curvature radius to infinity we reach to the flat-space limit in hyperbolic space. This allows us to use conformal bootstrap methods to study massive QFT in one higher dimension and calculate observables like scattering amplitudes or finding bounds on the couplings of theory. The main goal of my research during my Ph.D. would be to study QFTs in hyperbolic space to better understand strongly coupled QFTs.Hamiltonian truncation is a numerical method to study strongly coupled QFTs by imposing a UV cutoff. We use this method to study strongly coupled QFT in hyperbolic space background. For simplicity, we start with scalar field theory in 2-dimensional AdS. We expect to extract the spectrum of our theory as a function of AdS curvature and find the boundary correlation functions.

EPFL2022