Related papers: Data-Driven Terramechanics Approach Towards a Real…
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…
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…
This contribution reports on a software framework that uses physically-based rendering to simulate camera operation in lunar conditions. The focus is on generating synthetic images qualitatively similar to those produced by an actual camera…
Autonomous precision navigation to land onto the Moon relies on vision sensors. Computer vision algorithms are designed, trained and tested using synthetic simulations. High quality terrain models have been produced by Moon orbiters…
Robot mobility is critical for mission success, especially in soft or deformable terrains, where the complex wheel-soil interaction mechanics often leads to excessive wheel slip and sinkage, causing the eventual mission failure. To improve…
Recently, there has been a surge of international interest in extraterrestrial exploration targeting the Moon, Mars, the moons of Mars, and various asteroids. This contribution discusses how current state-of-the-art Earth-based testing for…
Reliable autonomous navigation across the unstructured terrains of distant planetary surfaces is a critical enabler for future space exploration. However, the deployment of learning-based controllers is hindered by the inherent sim-to-real…
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…
Synthetic image generation is one of the crucial input for planetary missions. It enables researchers and engineers to visualize planned planetary missions, test imaging systems and plan exploration activities in a virtual environment…
Regolith simulants are essential for space research and technology development. Yet, their physical properties often differ from those of true planetary soil, particularly when compared to regolith properties in-situ, that experience…
Robotic systems that can traverse planetary or lunar surfaces to collect environmental data and perform physical manipulation tasks, such as assembling equipment or conducting mining operations, are envisioned to form the backbone of future…
Simulating realistic radar data has the potential to significantly accelerate the development of data-driven approaches to radar processing. However, it is fraught with difficulty due to the notoriously complex image formation process. Here…
In an era marked by renewed interest in lunar exploration and the prospect of establishing a sustainable human presence on the Moon, innovative approaches supporting mission preparation and astronaut training are imperative. To this end,…
Developing algorithms for extra-terrestrial robotic exploration has always been challenging. Along with the complexity associated with these environments, one of the main issues remains the evaluation of said algorithms. With the regained…
Simulators are an important tool in robotics that is used to develop robot software and generate synthetic data for machine learning algorithms. Faster simulation can result in better software validation and larger amounts of data. Previous…
The wheel-soil interaction has great impact on the dynamics of off-road vehicles in terramechanics applications. The Soil Contact Model (SCM), which anchors an empirical method to characterize the frictional contact between a wheel and…
This work presents a hybrid physics-informed and data-driven modeling framework for predictive control of autonomous off-road vehicles operating on deformable terrain. Traditional high-fidelity terramechanics models are often too…
Developing excavation autonomy is challenging given the environments where excavators operate, the complexity of physical interaction and the degrees of freedom of operation of the excavator itself. Simulation is a useful tool to build…
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…
Simulators of animal movements play a valuable role in studying behavior. Advances in imitation learning for robotics have expanded possibilities for reproducing human and animal movements. A key challenge for realistic multi-animal…