Long Range Navigation on Desert by a Dual-Wheel Micro Rover

摘要

In this paper, navigation experiments by a micro rover are described. The micro rover, a cylindrical shaped rover of 146 [mm] in diameter and 220 [mm] in length, was developed to address some tasks that are mainly inclusive of communication, locomotion, and navigation. An on-board-computer mounted on the rover was able to carry out every control task autonomously. A radio transmission as the communication system was realized to send the telemetry data over a few thousand meters to the ground station. A Dual-Wheel system is adopted in order to enhance an effective locomotion and traveling distances. The rover has accomplished a steering control by using differential driven wheels. This paper also describes a simple and an effective navigation algorithm using the latitude and longitude obtained by GPS (Global Positioning System). The navigation algorithm is executed based on two vectors; a target vector and a velocity vector of the rover, each of which is derived from the position information. The rover has had achieved the elaboration of a long-range autonomous navigation capability for 3 [km] over a natural desert in Nevada, U.S.