Under the umbrella of the European Space Agency (ESA) StarTiger program, a rapid prototyping study called Seeker was initiated. A range of partners from space and nonspace sectors were brought together to develop a prototype Mars rover system capable of autonomously exploring several kilometers of highly representative Mars terrain over a three-day period. This paper reports on our approach and the final field trials that took place in the Atacama Desert, Chile. Long-range navigation and the associated remote rover field trials are a new departure for ESA, and this activity therefore represents a novel initiative in this area. The primary focus was to determine if current computer vision and artificial intelligence based software could enable such a capability on Mars, given the current limit of around 200 m per Martian day. The paper does not seek to introduce new theoretical techniques or compare various approaches, but it offers a unique perspective on their behavior in a highly representative environment. The final system autonomously navigated 5.05 km in highly representative terrain during one day. This work is part of a wider effort to achieve a step change in autonomous capability for future Mars/lunar exploration rover platforms.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Seeker—Autonomous Long-range Rover Navigation for Remote Exploration


    Contributors:
    Woods, Mark (author) / Shaw, Andrew (author) / Tidey, Estelle (author) / Van Pham, Bach (author) / Simon, Lacroix (author) / Mukherji, Raja (author) / Maddison, Brian (author) / Cross, Gary (author) / Kisdi, Aron (author) / Tubby, Wayne (author)

    Published in:

    Journal of Field Robotics ; 31 , 6 ; 940-968


    Publication date :

    2014


    Size :

    29 Seiten




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English





    Autonomous navigation of a rover for planetary exploration

    Ferrario, Ivan / Massari, Mauro / Bernelli-Zazzera, Franco et al. | AIAA | 2001


    Autonomous Rover Navigation

    Moore, Brian / Dupuis, Erick / Allard, Pierre et al. | SAE Technical Papers | 2003


    LunarNav: Crater-based Localization for Long-range Autonomous Lunar Rover Navigation

    Daftry, Shreyansh / Chen, Zhanlin / Cheng, Yang et al. | IEEE | 2023


    Mars rover autonomous navigation

    Maurette, M. | Tema Archive | 2003