Mars microrover navigation: Performance evaluation and enhancement

Larry Matthies, Erann Gat, Reid Harrison, Brian Wilcox, Richard Volpe, Todd Litwin

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Summary

Good paper proving the proof of concept of autonomous vehicles. The small vehicle did move incredably slowly, however. The rover was able to navigate around obstacles using a simple algorithm (if something's in the way on the right, turn left) and a light strip ranging sensor.

Methods

1. Designate a goal - use waypoints designated by earth's control center, which are relative to the robot

2. Localize the rover - using deadreckoning after upload from earth to recalibrate each day

3. Detect hazards - light strip ranging sensor - if (laser detects 2 points in obstacle | different elevation in 8 connected neighbor points | different between top and bottom of array of points exceeds threshold)

4. Select a path - move forward until hazard, otherwise turn away from hazard

Keywords

ranging sensor, localization, goal designation

Rating

5

Bibtex Entry

@misc{ matthies95mars,

author = "L. Matthies",

title = "Mars microrover navigation: Performance evaluation and enhancement",

text = "L. Matthies et al. Mars microrover navigation: Performance evaluation and enhancement. Autonomous Robots, Special Issue on Autonomous Vehicles for Planetary Exploration, 2(4):291--311, 1995.",

year = "1995",

url = "citeseer.nj.nec.com/matthies95mars.html"

}

 

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