Lunar Rover Model - Reengineering of an Existing Mobile Platform towards the realization of a Rover Autonomy Testbed

Abstract

The Automation & Robotics Section of the European Space Agency (ESA) is developing a platform for investigation of different levels of autonomy of planetary rovers. Within this scope a physical flight model is required and the Lunar Rover Model (LRM) is chosen. The LRM is a 4 wheel, medium-scale (120kg) Moon exploration rover breadboard, equipped with a 5- DOF robotic arm. This paper presents the complete refurbishment and motion control redesign. Therefore the rover is equipped with a new distributed motion control architecture based on CANopen. Following the hardware upgrades, a complete dynamic model of the rover is developed in 20sim and algorithms for all the rover locomotion modes are analyzed and implemented. Subsequently all the locomotion control algorithms are ported on the rover and the control performance is evaluated using high accuracy measurement systems.