Spherical Planetary Robot for Rugged Terrain Traversal

摘要

Wheeled planetary rovers such as the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) and MarsScience Laboratory (MSL) have provided unprecedented, detailed images of theMars surface. However, these rovers are large and are of high-cost as they needto carry sophisticated instruments and science laboratories. We propose thedevelopment of low-cost planetary rovers that are the size and shape ofcantaloupes and that can be deployed from a larger rover. The rover namedSphereX is 2 kg in mass, is spherical, holonomic and contains a hoppingmechanism to jump over rugged terrain. A small low-cost rover complements alarger rover, particularly to traverse rugged terrain or roll down a canyon,cliff or crater to obtain images and science data. While it may be a one-wayjourney for these small robots, they could be used tactically to obtainhigh-reward science data. The robot is equipped with a pair of stereo camerasto perform visual navigation and has room for a science payload. In this paper,we analyze the design and development of a laboratory prototype. The resultsshow a promising pathway towards development of a field system.