Meet the Team: STAR-BOTS
The STAR-BOTS experiment from the University of Bologna, Italy, is addressing the complex challenges of modern space operations, focusing on the development and validation of advanced coordination strategies for multi-robot systems in orbit. The team has been selected in February 2026 for the ESA Academy Experiments Programme, which will support their project by providing access to a testing facility and technical guidance.
As Earth's orbits become increasingly crowded, the ability to deploy autonomous multi-robot systems is a fundamental step toward effective Active Debris Removal and complex In-Orbit Servicing operations.
The experiment, titled “Cooperative Target Encirclement via Orbital Robot Swarms,” is designed to test formation control among agents of the swarm, as well as the encirclement and tracking of a tumbling, non-cooperative target.
As part of the programme, these tests will be conducted at the Orbital Robotics Laboratory (ORL) at ESA ESTEC, where the team will utilise a mixed real-virtual experimental setup: physical robotic platforms, such as REACSA and MANTIS, will be integrated into a wider swarm of both real and virtual agents that must coordinate autonomously to execute high-precision tasks.
This approach allows the team to scale the complexity of the experiment, simulating large-scale swarm behaviours while maintaining the high-fidelity feedback of real robotic hardware. By emulating microgravity conditions on the ORL Flat Floor, the team can verify the reliability of their cooperative control algorithms in a setting that closely mirrors the dynamics of space.
The STAR-BOTS team is composed of eight students ranging from Bachelor’s to PhD level: Andrea Drudi, Carlo Dallara, Simone Bernardi, Francesco Cenni, Giacomo Pezzolati, Gianluca Parri, Giacomo Nobili, and Marco Roca.
This collaboration allows the team to bridge the gap between theoretical multi-agent research and the practical requirements of space-grade engineering, contributing to the next generation of autonomous orbital systems.