Robert E. Scheid

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Robert E. Scheid is a pioneering researcher in planetary aerobot navigation and high-performance robotic simulation. His work focuses on developing autonomous perception systems for robotic balloons—aerobots—designed to explore Venus, Mars, Titan, and other gaseous planetary bodies. Scheid’s major contribution includes the design of on-board perception algorithms for the Planetary Aerobot Testbed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, enabling real-time navigation without ground control. This earth-based system serves as a critical precursor for future extraterrestrial aerial missions. In parallel, Scheid advanced computational robotics by developing fast parallel Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient algorithms for robot manipulator dynamics simulation, significantly improving the efficiency of real-time control computations. While his most-cited papers each have two citations, their impact lies in foundational concepts that support ongoing NASA aerobot development and parallel robotics simulation. Scheid’s work bridges aerospace engineering and computational methods, offering practical solutions for autonomous exploration in extreme environments. His research remains relevant for students and engineers interested in planetary science, autonomous systems, and high-performance computing for robotics.