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Lunar or planetary exploration missions including landers and rovers have been earnestly under study in Japan. One of the main missions for lunar robotics exploration is to demonstrate the technologies for lunar or planetary surface exploration, which will cover landing technology and surface exploration rover technology. Lunar geologic survey will be also performed for utilization and scientific...
We present a two-step iterative algorithm to estimate the trajectory of a hopping rover. In the first step, a monocular scheme of visual odometry is adapted to estimate an initial portion the hopping trajectory. From this, the parameters for the ballistic motion are recovered, and the trajectory is extrapolated to predict the positions of the rover for the remainder of the hop. In the second step,...
As space exploration progresses, renewed attention has been given to advanced lunar exploration technologies. The main objective is to address many open questions about the Moon, such as its origin or chemical components, as most of the current hypotheses are just inferences based on limited evidences. Unmanned subsurface investigation technologies for the moon are of special significance for future...
Lunar rovers are required to move on rough terrains such as in craters and rear cliffs where it is scientifically very important to explore. Recently, wheel typed rovers are popular for planetary exploration missions. However, there is a problem that the wheel typed rovers have possibility of stack. Therefore, this paper investigates a mechanism of kinetic behavior between the wheels of the exploration...
Exploration in the low-gravity environment on an asteroid surface is best achieved by using a hopping rover. Robust and effective control of such a rover will require autonomous navigation, for which accurate localization is an important element. The combination of a hopping platform on an extraterrestrial, low-gravity environment presents unique challenges for the task of localization. In this paper,...
Planetary exploration requires rovers to perform a variety of challenging tasks autonomously. In order to complete relevant scientific mission, these rovers need to overcome difficulty for rough terrain traversing by "online methods". This paper discusses an idea that utilizes a rover mobile center of mass in order to aid in traversing rough terrain. According to vehicle pitch angle and...
This paper describes a position identification method to precisely estimate the relative movement onboard of an autonomous explorer in such natural terrain as Moon or Mars. This paper proposes a new map matching scheme that registers the visual information of consecutive robot positions and expresses the robot displacement in a common coordinate system. Local elevation maps of the environment are...
This paper proposes an efficient scheme to make a routing and sensing plan simultaneously for lunar or planetary exploration rovers. In the proposed scheme, the environment is widely recognized by using a vision system. The proposed algorithm can detect obstacles based on gray-level image. And a rough route is produced by judging whether the area is safe or dangerous. Firstly, the shade average and...
In future planetary exploration missions, rovers are required to traverse over very rough terrain. Regolith, the soil that covers the Moon's surface, is easy to slide, causing rovers running on it get stuck. Some researchers have studied the mobility system for rovers. However the optimal and robust mobility systems have not been developed yet. For avoiding stuck-up, this paper proposes a new wheel...
Planetary rovers are required to explore rough and steep areas such as craters and cliffs to achieve scientific goals. Most of the proposed rovers have some wheels to move on a planetary surface. However, it is difficult to traverse on a rough terrain flexibly. A legged rover can provide higher capability of moving in such a rough terrain than wheeled robots. Therefore the authors have studied a small...
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