Related papers: Predict the Rover Mobility over Soft Terrain using…
Non-geometric mobility hazards such as rover slippage and sinkage posing great challenges to costly planetary missions are closely related to the mechanical properties of terrain. In-situ proprioceptive processes for rovers to estimate…
Most autonomous navigation systems assume wheeled robots are rigid bodies and their 2D planar workspaces can be divided into free spaces and obstacles. However, recent wheeled mobility research, showing that wheeled platforms have the…
Understanding the wheel-terrain interaction is of great importance to improve the maneuverability and traversability of the rovers. A well-developed sensing device carried by the rover would greatly facilitate the complex risk-reducing…
Autonomous locomotion for mobile ground robots in unstructured environments such as waypoint navigation or flipper control requires a sufficiently accurate prediction of the robot-terrain interaction. Heuristics like occupancy grids or…
A thorough analysis of wheel-terrain interaction is critical to ensure the safe and efficient operation of space rovers on extraterrestrial surfaces like the Moon or Mars. This paper presents an approach for developing and experimentally…
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…
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…
Skid-Steer Wheeled Mobile Robots (SSWMRs) are increasingly being used for off-road autonomy applications. When turning at high speeds, these robots tend to undergo significant skidding and slipping. In this work, using Gaussian Process…
Simulation of vehicle motion in planetary environments is challenging. This is due to the modeling of complex terrain, optical conditions, and terrain-aware vehicle dynamics. One of the critical issues of typical simulators is that they…
Slip detection is of fundamental importance for the safety and efficiency of rovers driving on the surface of extraterrestrial bodies. Current planetary rover slip detection systems rely on visual perception on the assumption that…
High-fidelity simulators for the lunar surface provide a digital environment for extensive testing of rover operations and mission planning. However, current simulators focus on either visual realism or physical accuracy, which limits their…
Locomotion on granular slopes such as sand dunes remains a fundamental challenge for legged robots due to reduced shear strength and gravity-induced anisotropic yielding of granular media. Using a hexapedal robot on a tiltable granular bed,…
Accurate velocity estimation is critical in mobile robotics, particularly for driver assistance systems and autonomous driving. Wheel odometry fused with Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) data is a widely used method for velocity estimation;…
Highly accurate real-time localization is of fundamental importance for the safety and efficiency of planetary rovers exploring the surface of Mars. Mars rover operations rely on vision-based systems to avoid hazards as well as plan safe…
Controlling Wheeled-legged robots is challenging especially on slippery surfaces due to their dependence on continuous ground contact. Unlike quadrupeds or bipeds, which can leverage multiple fixed contact points for recovery,…
Wheeled rovers have been the primary choice for lunar exploration due to their speed and efficiency. However, deeper areas, such as lunar caves and craters, require the mobility of legged robots. To do so, appropriate end effectors must be…
Traversability assessment of deformable terrain is vital for safe rover navigation on planetary surfaces. Machine learning (ML) is a powerful tool for traversability prediction but faces predictive uncertainty. This uncertainty leads to…
Uncertainty-aware robot motion prediction is crucial for downstream traversability estimation and safe autonomous navigation in unstructured, off-road environments, where terrain is heterogeneous and perceptual uncertainty is high. Most…
Wheeled bipedal robots are emerging as flexible platforms for field exploration. However, head instability induced by uneven terrain can degrade the accuracy of onboard sensors or damage fragile payloads. Existing research primarily focuses…
Although wheeled robots have been predominant for planetary exploration, their geometry limits their capabilities when traveling over steep slopes, through rocky terrains, and in microgravity. Legged robots equipped with grippers are a…