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About

Babak E. Cohanim is a leading expert in autonomous planetary landing systems, with a focus on hazard detection and real-time landing site selection for small robotic landers and hoppers. His research addresses the critical challenge of enabling safe, precise, and efficient landings on planetary bodies like the Moon, where factors such as boulders, craters, slopes, and fuel management must be navigated in real-time during descent. Cohanim pioneered methods that reduce mass and computational load, making advanced hazard detection feasible for resource-constrained vehicles. His notable contributions include the development of the Real-Time Landing Point Redesignation (LPR) algorithm and a statistical hazard detection technique using shadows, which together allow for onboard, self-contained site selection without reliance on complex sensors. His work has been cited in key studies on planetary mobility, with papers like "Hazard detection for small robotic landers and hoppers" (2013) and "Real-Time Landing Point Redesignation (LPR) Algorithm" (2008) each garnering 5 citations. Cohanim’s innovations are foundational for future missions that reuse landing platforms for propulsive ascent and translation, enhancing regional exploration capabilities.