Raspberry-Pi Based Semi-Autonomous Rover for Pre-Defined Navigation Path
S. Towseef Ahmed, M. Noorjahan, Syed. Nishath Samreen, Sweta Kumari, S. Fowzia Sultana · 2025
The Chandrayaan missions aim to study nearby Moon's composition, mineralogy, geologic evolution. Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2 missions had their unique challenges and limitations. India's first lunar mission was Chandrayaan-1, it was launched in cognizant, 2008. and did not include a rover; instead, it carried an orbiter and an impact probe. Success was achieved in the detection of water molecules on the Moon, but in the project that spanned over ten months of operation, the orbiter had to suffer from failure due to overheating and communication problems. Launched in 2019, the Chandrayaan-2 mission included the Pragyan rover, planned for exploring the lunar surface. Unfortunately, the Vikram lander suffered considerable damage during descent from software and trajectory errors, putting the entire mission at jeopardy. The successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3, India's third lunar research project, in 2023 at the Moon's South Pole drove a momentous turning point for the nation's space exploration endeavors and yielded vital new information for lunar science. To this end, we have developed a semi-autonomous rover that employs the A* path finding algorithm to navigate in a grid-like environment. The major aim, therefore, is for the rover to autonomously plan the best route while avoiding obstacles that were specified in advance. After setting the locations of the rover's source and destination, the current system uses the A* algorithm to find the most efficient path in a grid-like representation. Real-time modifications of its trajectory allow the rover to circumvent obstacles and navigate accurately and safely in an ever-changing environment. Test results show the ability of the rover to perform tasks related to navigation, thus proving the applicability of the A* algorithm in real-life situations such as industrial automation, rescue operations, and autonomous exploration in confined spaces.