An innovative high accuracy autonomous navigation method for the Mars rovers

Autonomous navigation is an important function for a Mars rover to fulfill missions successfully. It is a critical technique to overcome the limitations of ground tracking and control traditionally used. This paper proposes an innovative method based on SINS (Strapdown Inertial Navigation System) with the aid of star sensors to accurately determine the rovers position and attitude. This method consists of two parts: the initial alignment and navigation. The alignment consists of a coarse position and attitude initial alignment approach and fine initial alignment approach. The coarse one is used to determine approximate position and attitude for the rover. This is followed by fine alignment to tune the approximate solution to accurate one. Upon the completion of initial alignment, the system can be used to provide real-time navigation solutions for the rover. An autonomous navigation algorithm is proposed to estimate and compensate the accumulated errors of SINS in real time. High accuracy attitude information from star sensor is used to correct errors in SINS. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed methods can achieve a high precision autonomous navigation for Mars rovers. © 2014 IAA

Conceptual development of a ground-based radio-beacon navigation system for use on the surface of the moon

A spread-spectrum radio-beacon navigation system for use on the lunar surface is described. The subjects discussed are principle of operation and specifications to include power requirements, operating frequencies, weight, size, and range

An Open Source, Autonomous, Vision-Based Algorithm for Hazard Detection and Avoidance for Celestial Body Landing

Planetary exploration is one of the main goals that humankind has established as a must for space exploration in order to be prepared for colonizing new places and provide scientific data for a better understanding of the formation of our solar system. In order to provide a safe approach, several safety measures must be undertaken to guarantee not only the success of the mission but also the safety of the crew. One of these safety measures is the Autonomous Hazard, Detection, and Avoidance (HDA) sub-system for celestial body landers that will enable different spacecraft to complete solar system exploration. The main objective of the HDA sub-system is to assemble a map of the local terrain during the descent of the spacecraft so that a safe landing site can be marked down. This thesis will be focused on a passive method using a monocular camera as its primary detection sensor due to its form factor and weight, which enables its implementation alongside the proposed HDA algorithm in the Intuitive Machines lunar lander NOVA-C as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services technological demonstration in 2021 for the NASA Artemis program to take humans back to the moon. This algorithm is implemented by including two different sources for making decisions, a two-dimensional (2D) vision-based HDA map and a three-dimensional (3D) HDA map obtained through a Structure from Motion process in combination with a plane fitting sequence. These two maps will provide different metrics in order to provide the lander a better probability of performing a safe touchdown. These metrics are processed to optimize a cost function

DEVELOPMENT OF THE NASA CELESTIAL NAVIGATION METHOD FOR DYNAMIC EXTRATERRESTRIAL SURFACE NAVIGATION

The Celestial Navigation (CelNav) method was developed in conjunction with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, to provide accurate location data for extraterrestrial surface navigation without the use of a global positioning system (GPS) or a ground/relay station. CelNav is a minimal sensor/power solution originally developed for static Lunar surface navigation. However, dynamic navigation via CelNav requires high-accuracy state estimates, due to the absence of key sensors such as a gyroscope, GPS, and a magnetometer. In this thesis, robust nonlinear state estimation techniques (the Sliding Mode Observer, the Extended Kalman Filter, and the H-Infinity Filter) are used with CelNav to accurately determine dynamic latitude, longitude, and heading, for an unmanned/manned rover or astronaut. The goal is to investigate the feasibility of implementing a nonlinear estimation technique with CelNav for dynamic extraterrestrial surface navigation when accurate location coordinates are necessary. Preliminary results show that this research shows promise as a secondary dynamic navigation system for future extraterrestrial exploration

Service-Oriented Architecture for Space Exploration Robotic Rover Systems

Currently, industrial sectors are transforming their business processes into e-services and component-based architectures to build flexible, robust, and scalable systems, and reduce integration-related maintenance and development costs. Robotics is yet another promising and fast-growing industry that deals with the creation of machines that operate in an autonomous fashion and serve for various applications including space exploration, weaponry, laboratory research, and manufacturing. It is in space exploration that the most common type of robots is the planetary rover which moves across the surface of a planet and conducts a thorough geological study of the celestial surface. This type of rover system is still ad-hoc in that it incorporates its software into its core hardware making the whole system cohesive, tightly-coupled, more susceptible to shortcomings, less flexible, hard to be scaled and maintained, and impossible to be adapted to other purposes. This paper proposes a service-oriented architecture for space exploration robotic rover systems made out of loosely-coupled and distributed web services. The proposed architecture consists of three elementary tiers: the client tier that corresponds to the actual rover; the server tier that corresponds to the web services; and the middleware tier that corresponds to an Enterprise Service Bus which promotes interoperability between the interconnected entities. The niche of this architecture is that rover's software components are decoupled and isolated from the rover's body and possibly deployed at a distant location. A service-oriented architecture promotes integrate-ability, scalability, reusability, maintainability, and interoperability for client-to-server communication.Comment: LACSC - Lebanese Association for Computational Sciences, http://www.lacsc.org/; International Journal of Science & Emerging Technologies (IJSET), Vol. 3, No. 2, February 201

Space exploration: The interstellar goal and Titan demonstration

Automated interstellar space exploration is reviewed. The Titan demonstration mission is discussed. Remote sensing and automated modeling are considered. Nuclear electric propulsion, main orbiting spacecraft, lander/rover, subsatellites, atmospheric probes, powered air vehicles, and a surface science network comprise mission component concepts. Machine, intelligence in space exploration is discussed

小型探査ローバにおけるリスクを考慮したロバスト画像処理

【学位授与の要件】中央大学学位規則第4条第1項【論文審査委員主査】橋本　秀紀　（中央大学理工学部教授）【論文審査委員副査】國井　康晴（中央大学理工学部教授）、中村　太郎（中央大学理工学部教授）、久保田　孝（宇宙航空研究開発機構教授）博士(工学)中央大

Space Science Opportunities Augmented by Exploration Telepresence

Since the end of the Apollo missions to the lunar surface in December 1972, humanity has exclusively conducted scientific studies on distant planetary surfaces using teleprogrammed robots. Operations and science return for all of these missions are constrained by two issues related to the great distances between terrestrial scientists and their exploration targets: high communication latencies and limited data bandwidth. Despite the proven successes of in-situ science being conducted using teleprogrammed robotic assets such as Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity rovers on the surface of Mars, future planetary field research may substantially overcome latency and bandwidth constraints by employing a variety of alternative strategies that could involve: 1) placing scientists/astronauts directly on planetary surfaces, as was done in the Apollo era; 2) developing fully autonomous robotic systems capable of conducting in-situ field science research; or 3) teleoperation of robotic assets by humans sufficiently proximal to the exploration targets to drastically reduce latencies and significantly increase bandwidth, thereby achieving effective human telepresence. This third strategy has been the focus of experts in telerobotics, telepresence, planetary science, and human spaceflight during two workshops held from October 3–7, 2016, and July 7–13, 2017, at the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS). Based on findings from these workshops, this document describes the conceptual and practical foundations of low-latency telepresence (LLT), opportunities for using derivative approaches for scientific exploration of planetary surfaces, and circumstances under which employing telepresence would be especially productive for planetary science. An important finding of these workshops is the conclusion that there has been limited study of the advantages of planetary science via LLT. A major recommendation from these workshops is that space agencies such as NASA should substantially increase science return with greater investments in this promising strategy for human conduct at distant exploration sites