The use of unmanned robotic vehicles to assist in the exploration of Mars and other planets has been of interest to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for several decades and has been the focus of an ongoing research program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for a similar period of time. As a result of these research activities, JPL is in the process of designing and building a small (7-9 kg) microrover to be flown aboard the Mars Environmental Survey Mission (MESUR)/Pathfinder spacecraft, which is tentatively to be launched to Mars in late 1997. The microrover will perform a variety of technology experiments designed to provide information critical to the design of future planetary rovers. In addition, the microrover will perform several science and lander related experiments using specialized onboard instruments. To enable the microrover to perform these experiments at selected target areas and at the same time deal with the long time delays (and limited communications bandwidth), a control/navigation approach combining the use of operator-designated waypoints and onboard behavior control has been adopted. The design of the MESUR/Pathfinder microrover and the overall manner in which it is controlled are described herein.


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    Title :

    Design of the MESUR/Pathfinder Microrover


    Contributors:
    H. W. Stone (author)

    Publication date :

    1994


    Size :

    1 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




    Mars Microrover For Mesur Pathfinder

    Pivirotto, D. / Varsi, G. | NTRS | 1993


    Design of the MESUR/pathfinder microrover

    Stone, Henry W. | NTRS | 1994


    Design of the MESUR/Pathfinder Microrover

    United States; National Aeronautics and Space Administration / United States; Air Force | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1993