Path Planning Method for Soil Investigation using Mobile Robot
Kohei Arai, Genya Ishigami · Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan · 2023
A lunar landing base is a key infrastructure for mass transportation from Earth to the Moon and for sustainable activities on the Moon in the future. Unmanned robots are expected to survey the soil stiffness of multiple points for securely constructing the landing infrastructure. There is a trade-off between the time or energy required for the survey, the number of survey points, and the completeness of the survey. This paper proposes a path planning for robotic soil investigation that determines the location and the number of additional survey points. The proposed method aims to obtain completeness of information related to the soil stiffness as well as to reduce the survey time. The simulation study reveals that the method achieves obtaining a certain level of completeness while it reduces the time required for the survey.