Related papers: Spherical Planetary Robot for Rugged Terrain Trave…
Currently, commercially available intelligent transport robots that are capable of carrying up to 90kg of load can cost \$5,000 or even more. This makes real-world experimentation prohibitively expensive and limits the applicability of such…
The current state of electronic component miniaturization coupled with the increasing efficiency in hardware and software allow the development of smaller and compact robotic systems. The convenience of using these small, simple, yet…
Wheeled ground robots are limited from exploring extreme environments such as caves, lava tubes and skylights. Small robots that utilize unconventional mobility through hopping, flying and rolling can overcome many roughness limitations and…
Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) near the lunar poles are of interest for future exploration due to their potential to contain water ice and preserve geological records. Their complex, uneven terrain favors the use of legged robots,…
Robotic spacecraft have helped expand our reach for many planetary exploration missions. Most ground mobile planetary exploration robots use wheeled or modified wheeled platforms. Although extraordinarily successful at completing intended…
Celestial bodies such as the Moon and Mars are mainly covered by loose, granular soil, a notoriously challenging terrain to traverse with (wheeled) robotic systems. Here, we present experimental work on traversing steep, granular slopes…
In this paper, we present a novel rolling, jumping robot. The robot consists of a driven pendulum mounted to a wheel in a compact, lightweight, 3D printed design. We show that by driving the pendulum to shift the robot's weight…
We present an approach to enhance wheeled planetary rover dead-reckoning localization performance by leveraging the use of zero-type constraint equations in the navigation filter. Without external aiding, inertial navigation solutions…
Lunar caves are promising features for long-term and permanent human presence on the moon. However, given their inaccessibility to imaging from survey satellites, the concrete environment within the underground cavities is not well known.…
The interest in exploring planetary bodies for scientific investigation and in-situ resource utilization is ever-rising. Yet, many sites of interest are inaccessible to state-of-the-art planetary exploration robots because of the robots'…
Legged rovers provide enhanced mobility compared to wheeled platforms, enabling navigation on steep and irregular planetary terrains. However, traditional legged locomotion might be energetically inefficient and potentially dangerous to the…
In this paper, we present a user-friendly planetary rover's control system for low latency surface telerobotic. Thanks to the proposed system, an operator can comfortably give commands through the control base station to a rover using…
In this paper we present a simulation framework for the evaluation of the navigation and localization metrological performances of a robotic platform. The simulator, based on ROS (Robot Operating System) Gazebo, is targeted to a…
The versatility of humanoid robots in locomotion, full-body motion, interaction with unmodified human environments, and intuitive human-robot interaction led to increased research interest. Multiple smaller platforms are available for…
We introduce an instrument for a wide spectrum of experiments on gravities other than our planet's. It is based on a large Atwood machine where one of the loads is a bucket equipped with a single board computer and different sensors. The…
Modern climbing robots have risen to great heights, but mechanisms meant to scale cliffs often locomote slowly and over-cautiously on level ground. Here we introduce T-RHex, an iteration on the classic cockroach-inspired hexapod that has…
The ability to launch small secondary payloads to Mars on future science missions present an exciting opportunity for demonstration of advanced technologies for planetary exploration such as aerocapture. Over the years, several aerocapture…
This document presents the study conducted during the European Moon Rover System Pre-Phase A project, in which we have developed a lunar rover system, with a modular approach, capable of carrying out different missions with different…
Robots have been critical instruments to space exploration by providing access to environments beyond human limitations. Jumping robot concepts are attractive solutions to negotiate complex terrain. However, among the engineering challenges…
The potential of Martian lava tubes for resource extraction and habitat sheltering highlights the need for robots capable to undertake the grueling task of their exploration. Driven by this motivation, in this work we introduce a legged…