Related papers: Data-Driven Terramechanics Approach Towards a Real…
Autonomous space rovers face significant challenges when navigating deformable and heterogeneous terrains due to variability in soil properties, which can lead to severe wheel slip, compromising navigation efficiency and increasing the risk…
This paper presents a novel 3D myopic coverage path planning algorithm for lunar micro-rovers that can explore unknown environments with limited sensing and computational capabilities. The algorithm expands upon traditional non-graph path…
Robot-aided exploration of planetary surfaces is essential for understanding geologic processes, yet many scientifically valuable regions, such as Martian dunes and lunar craters, remain hazardous due to loose, deformable regolith. We…
With the increasing popularity of human-computer interaction applications, there is also growing interest in generating sufficiently large and diverse data sets for automatic radar-based recognition of hand poses and gestures. Radar…
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…
Accurate 3D reconstruction of lunar surfaces is essential for space exploration. However, existing stereo vision reconstruction methods struggle in this context due to the Moon's lack of texture, difficult lighting variations, and atypical…
Having smart and autonomous earthmoving in mind, we explore high-performance wheel loading in a simulated environment. This paper introduces a wheel loader simulator that combines contacting 3D multibody dynamics with a hybrid…
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,…
The performances of braking control systems for robotic platforms, e.g., assisted and autonomous vehicles, airplanes and drones, are deeply influenced by the road-tire friction experienced during the maneuver. Therefore, the availability of…
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…
We investigate how well a physics-based simulator can replicate a real wheel loader performing bucket filling in a pile of soil. The comparison is made using field test time series of the vehicle motion and actuation forces, loaded mass,…
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…
Robotic manipulation with deformable objects represents a data-intensive regime in embodied learning, where shape, contact, and topology co-evolve in ways that far exceed the variability of rigids. Although simulation promises relief from…
With the increasing safety validation requirements for the release of a self-driving car, alternative approaches, such as simulation-based testing, are emerging in addition to conventional real-world testing. In order to rely on virtual…
Robot simulation has been an essential tool for data-driven manipulation tasks. However, most existing simulation frameworks lack either efficient and accurate models of physical interactions with tactile sensors or realistic tactile…
Extraterrestrial rovers with a general-purpose robotic arm have many potential applications in lunar and planetary exploration. Introducing autonomy into such systems is desirable for increasing the time that rovers can spend gathering…
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…
Terrain traversability analysis plays a major role in ensuring safe robotic navigation in unstructured environments. However, real-time constraints frequently limit the accuracy of online tests especially in scenarios where realistic…
Autonomous space systems operating in extreme thermal environments require accurate and efficient thermal modeling to support both pre-mission system design and onboard autonomy. For lunar rovers, large temperature gradients, radiative heat…
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…