Related papers: MLNav: Learning to Safely Navigate on Martian Terr…
Enhanced AutoNav (ENav), the baseline surface navigation software for NASA's Perseverance rover, sorts a list of candidate paths for the rover to traverse, then uses the Approximate Clearance Evaluation (ACE) algorithm to evaluate whether…
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…
The Mars Perseverance rover applies computer vision for navigation and hazard avoidance. The challenge to do onboard object recognition highlights the need for low-power, customized training, often including low-contrast backgrounds. We…
Machine learning (ML) plays a crucial role in assessing traversability for autonomous rover operations on deformable terrains but suffers from inevitable prediction errors. Especially for heterogeneous terrains where the geological features…
Nano-UAV teams offer great agility yet face severe navigation challenges due to constrained onboard sensing, communication, and computation. Existing approaches rely on high-resolution vision or compute-intensive planners, rendering them…
The ability to traverse an unknown environment is crucial for autonomous robot operations. However, due to the limited sensing capabilities and system constraints, approaching this problem with a single robot agent can be slow, costly, and…
Autonomous navigation in unknown environments requires multi-scale spatial understanding that captures geometric details, topological connectivity, and global structure to support high-level decision making under partial observability.…
Planetary rover missions must utilize machine learning-based perception to continue extra-terrestrial exploration with little to no human presence. Martian terrain segmentation has been critical for rover navigation and hazard avoidance to…
Multi-robot collision-free and deadlock-free navigation in cluttered environments with static and dynamic obstacles is a fundamental problem for many applications. We introduce MRNAV, a framework for planning and control to effectively…
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…
As robotic navigation techniques in perception and planning advance, mobile robots increasingly venture into off-road environments involving complex traversability. However, selecting suitable planning methods remains a challenge due to…
Autonomous vehicles such as the Mars rovers currently lead the vanguard of surface exploration on extraterrestrial planets and moons. In order to accelerate the pace of exploration and science objectives, it is critical to plan safe and…
The increasingly complex and diverse planetary exploration environment requires more adaptable and flexible rover navigation strategy. In this study, we propose a VLM-empowered multi-mode system to achieve efficient while safe autonomous…
The exploration of planetary surfaces is predominately unmanned, calling for a landing vehicle and an autonomous and/or teleoperated rover. Artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques can be leveraged for better mission…
Autonomous navigation in off-road environments remains a significant challenge in field robotics, particularly for Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) tasked with search and rescue, exploration, and surveillance. Effective long-range planning…
In this paper we present the first safe system for full control of self-driving vehicles trained from human demonstrations and deployed in challenging, real-world, urban environments. Current industry-standard solutions use rule-based…
Navigating unstructured environments requires assessing traversal risk relative to a robot's physical capabilities, a challenge that varies across embodiments. We present CATNAV, a cost-aware traversability navigation framework that…
Autonomous navigation in off-road conditions requires an accurate estimation of terrain traversability. However, traversability estimation in unstructured environments is subject to high uncertainty due to the variability of numerous…
Today, robotics is an auspicious and fast-growing branch of technology that involves the manufacturing, design, and maintenance of robot machines that can operate in an autonomous fashion and can be used in a wide variety of applications…
Deep learning has enjoyed much recent success, and applying state-of-the-art model learning methods to controls is an exciting prospect. However, there is a strong reluctance to use these methods on safety-critical systems, which have…