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The allure of lunar surface exploration and development has recently captured widespread global attention. Robots have proved to be indispensable for exploring uncharted terrains, uncovering and leveraging local resources, and facilitating…
Robotics plays a pivotal role in planetary science and exploration, where autonomous and reliable systems are crucial due to the risks and challenges inherent to space environments. The establishment of permanent lunar bases demands robotic…
Future Moon bases will likely be constructed using resources mined from the surface of the Moon. The difficulty of maintaining a human workforce on the Moon and communications lag with Earth means that mining will need to be conducted using…
Autonomous terrain classification is an important problem in planetary navigation, whether the goal is to identify scientific sites of interest or to traverse treacherous areas safely. Past Martian rovers have relied on human operators to…
Global localization is necessary for autonomous operations on the lunar surface where traditional Earth-based navigation infrastructure, such as GPS, is unavailable. As NASA advances toward sustained lunar presence under the Artemis…
Mobile manipulators have the potential to revolutionize modern agriculture, logistics and manufacturing. In this work, we present the design of a ground-based mobile manipulator for automated structure assembly. The proposed system is…
The Artemis program requires robotic and crewed lunar rovers for resource prospecting and exploitation, construction and maintenance of facilities, and human exploration. These rovers must support navigation for 10s of kilometers (km) from…
We present a modular, full-stack autonomy system for lunar surface navigation and mapping developed for the Lunar Autonomy Challenge. Operating in a GNSS-denied, visually challenging environment, our pipeline integrates semantic…
Lunar exploration has become a key focus, driving scientific and technological advances. Ongoing missions are deploying rovers to the surface of the Moon, targeting the far side and south pole. However, these terrains pose challenges,…
We present a simulation framework for lunar construction work involving multiple autonomous machines. The framework supports modelling of construction scenarios and autonomy solutions, execution of the scenarios in simulation, and analysis…
The ability to determine the pose of a rover in an inertial frame autonomously is a crucial capability necessary for the next generation of surface rover missions on other planetary bodies. Currently, most on-going rover missions utilize…
The rapid growth of cislunar activities, including lunar landings, the Lunar Gateway, and in-space refueling stations, requires advances in cost-efficient trajectory design and reliable integration of navigation and remote sensing.…
As humans venture deeper into space, the need for a lunar settlement, housing the first group of settlers, grows steadily. By means of new technologies such as in situ resource utilisation (ISRU) as well as computational design, this goal…
Onboard localization capabilities for planetary rovers to date have used relative navigation, by integrating combinations of wheel odometry, visual odometry, and inertial measurements during each drive to track position relative to the…
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…
Future infrastructure construction on the lunar surface will require semi- or fully-autonomous operation from robots deployed at the build site. In particular, tasks such as electrical outfitting necessitate transport, routing, and fine…
NASA's Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE) mission, slated for flight to the Moon's Reiner Gamma region in 2025/2026, is designed to demonstrate multi-agent autonomous exploration of the Lunar surface and…
An efficient characterization of scientifically significant locations is essential prior to the return of humans to the Moon. The highest resolution imagery acquired from orbit of south-polar shadowed regions and other relevant locations…
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…
In this paper, a control approach called Artificial Neural Tissue (ANT) is applied to multirobot excavation for lunar base preparation tasks including clearing landing pads and burying of habitat modules. We show for the first time, a team…