SELECTING AND COMBINING NAVIGATION AND LOCOMOTION 'BREADBOARDS' TO COMPLETE AN INTEGRATED MARS ROVER PROTOTYPE

摘要

Two of the key challenges in developing an autonomous inter-planetary rover are selecting and testing the algorithms that will determine the navigable path across the planet and the locomotion system that will actually perform the traverse. There is a continuous trade off between algorithm complexity, processing performance, reliability and performance accuracy. As part of Phase B1 development of the ExoMars Rover Vehicle project, candidate locomotion system designs and navigation algorithms were prototyped as separate "breadboard" projects. Two Locomotion Breadboard designs were manufactured, and the CNES robotic autonomy software suite EDRES was selected to form the basis of the Navigation Breadboard. This paper will outline the principles of these designs and algorithms and discuss the challenges of bringing the two breadboards together, along with other hardware, to create an Integrated Mars Rover Vehicle Breadboard for field trials.