Lunar Rover Motion Planning and Commands
Ivan Sinkarenko · Aaltodoc (Aalto University) · 2013
Space exploration is moving forward and one of the topics currently being researched is mining. The objective of this thesis is to design and develop software for the auton- omous navigation of a wheeled rover that is being built for NASA’s Lunabotics Mining Competition. The motion control system is a crucial component of a planetary rover system and its implementation heavily depends on the chassis configuration. The configuration of the rover enables us to use three steering modes: Ackermann, Point- turn and Crab steering. The implementation takes advantages of all the modes and involves algorithms for path planning, path smoothing and path following. In addi- tion, the system offers a feature of automatic steering mode selection. The system can be tuned and controlled by the cross-platform application specifically developed for this purpose. The performance of the implemented system is analyzed by testing in a simulator with a realistic physics engine and 3D visualization capabilities. Our con- ducted tests confirm that the system is sufficient in the framework of the Lunabotics Mining Competition.