Development of an exploration rover platform for sample return mission

Abstract

This paper introduces core technologies and development process of an exploration rover for sample return mission. The purpose of development for the rover is to participate in the Sample Return Robot Challenge: pre-learning sample to be found, searching for the target sample with autonomous navigation, and retrieving the sample to a goal location, which requires many techniques from various fields to work together. In order to suppose the rover operated at the space environment such as the Moon or the Mars, mechanical characteristics and sensor/electronic/communication systems are described in this paper.