AUTONOMOUS LONG-RANGE ROVER NAVIGATION - EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

摘要

The success of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers has demonstrated the important benefits that mobility adds to planetary exploration. With ExoMars and the Mars Science Laboratory missions, mobility will play an everincreasing role. Very soon, mission requirements will impose that planetary exploration rovers drive over-thehorizon in a single command cycle. This will require an evolution of the methods and technologies currently used. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has been conducting research in ground control and in autonomous robotics for several years already. One of the target applications is planetary exploration using mobile platforms. The emphasis of our research program is on reactive on-board autonomy software and long-range rover navigation. This paper provides experimental results obtained during the summer 2006 test campaign for several of the key technologies developed under our research program. In particular, the paper describes results in the area of terrain modelling, path planning, rover motion control, and rover localisation. Statistical analyses have been performed on test results, where relevant, to provide an indication of success ratios and performance.