1,157 research outputs found
Autonomous Rock Instance Segmentation for Extra-Terrestrial Robotic Missions
The collection and analysis of extra-terrestrial matter
are two of the main motivations for space exploration missions.
Due to the inherent risks for participating astronauts during
space missions, autonomous robotic systems are often consid-
ered as a promising alternative. In recent years, many (in-
ter)national space missions containing rovers to explore celestial
bodies have been launched. Hereby, the communication delay as
well as limited bandwidth creates a need for highly self-governed
agents that require only infrequent interaction with scientists at
a ground station. Such a setting is explored in the ARCHES mis-
sion, which seeks to investigate different means of collaboration
between scientists and autonomous robots in extra-terrestrial
environments. The analog mission focuses a team of hetero-
geneous agents (two Lightweight Rover Units and ARDEA, a
drone), which together perform various complex tasks under
strict communication constraints. In this paper, we highlight
three of these tasks that were successfully demonstrated during
a one-month test mission on Mt. Etna in Sicily, Italy, which was
chosen due to its similarity to the Moon in terms of geological
structure. All three tasks have in common, that they leverage an
instance segmentation approach deployed on the rovers to detect
rocks within camera imagery. The first application is a map-
ping scheme that incorporates semantically detected rocks into
its environment model to safely navigate to points of interest.
Secondly, we present a method for the collection and extraction of in-situ samples with a rover, which uses rock detection to localize relevant candidates to grasp. For the third task, we show the usefulness of stone segmentation to autonomously conduct a spectrometer measurement experiment. We perform a throughout analysis of the presented methods and evaluate our experimental results. The demonstrations on Mt. Etna show that our approaches are well suited for navigation, geological analysis, and sample extraction tasks within autonomous robotic extra-terrestrial missions
POLAR3D: Augmenting NASA's POLAR Dataset for Data-Driven Lunar Perception and Rover Simulation
We report on an effort that led to POLAR3D, a set of digital assets that
enhance the POLAR dataset of stereo images generated by NASA to mimic lunar
lighting conditions. Our contributions are twofold. First, we have annotated
each photo in the POLAR dataset, providing approximately 23 000 labels for
rocks and their shadows. Second, we digitized several lunar terrain scenarios
available in the POLAR dataset. Specifically, by utilizing both the lunar
photos and the POLAR's LiDAR point clouds, we constructed detailed obj files
for all identifiable assets. POLAR3D is the set of digital assets comprising of
rock/shadow labels and obj files associated with the digital twins of lunar
terrain scenarios. This new dataset can be used for training perception
algorithms for lunar exploration and synthesizing photorealistic images beyond
the original POLAR collection. Likewise, the obj assets can be integrated into
simulation environments to facilitate realistic rover operations in a digital
twin of a POLAR scenario. POLAR3D is publicly available to aid perception
algorithm development, camera simulation efforts, and lunar simulation
exercises.POLAR3D is publicly available at
https://github.com/uwsbel/POLAR-digital.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; this work has been submitted to the 2024 IEEE
Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) under revie
OmniLRS: A Photorealistic Simulator for Lunar Robotics
Developing algorithms for extra-terrestrial robotic exploration has always
been challenging. Along with the complexity associated with these environments,
one of the main issues remains the evaluation of said algorithms. With the
regained interest in lunar exploration, there is also a demand for quality
simulators that will enable the development of lunar robots. % In this paper,
we explain how we built a Lunar simulator based on Isaac Sim, Nvidia's robotic
simulator. In this paper, we propose Omniverse Lunar Robotic-Sim (OmniLRS) that
is a photorealistic Lunar simulator based on Nvidia's robotic simulator. This
simulation provides fast procedural environment generation, multi-robot
capabilities, along with synthetic data pipeline for machine-learning
applications. It comes with ROS1 and ROS2 bindings to control not only the
robots, but also the environments. This work also performs sim-to-real rock
instance segmentation to show the effectiveness of our simulator for
image-based perception. Trained on our synthetic data, a yolov8 model achieves
performance close to a model trained on real-world data, with 5% performance
gap. When finetuned with real data, the model achieves 14% higher average
precision than the model trained on real-world data, demonstrating our
simulator's photorealism.% to realize sim-to-real. The code is fully
open-source, accessible here: https://github.com/AntoineRichard/LunarSim, and
comes with demonstrations.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
VehÃculo autónomo de siembra y labrado para la agricultura andina del Perú
La agricultura es una actividad milenaria realizada por diversas culturas para brindar sustento económico y alimenticio. De la misma manera que la humanidad se ha desarrollado debido a las innovaciones tecnológicas, la agricultura ha formado parte de este crecimiento. Actualmente, las industrias impulsan la agricultura de precisión, la cual emplea los avances tecnológicos para automatizar este proceso artesanal. Con ello se mejora la rentabilidad y precisión de la labor agrÃcola.
No obstante, este tipo de agricultura está enfocada en campos de cultivo dedicados a la industria. Por ende, la región de la sierra del Perú no emplea avances tecnológicos de esta magnitud, puesto que presenta una geografÃa abrupta y campos de cultivo reducidos (parcelas). En este trabajo de investigación se propone desarrollar un vehÃculo agrÃcola autónomo para actividades de sembrado y labrado en campos de cultivo de la sierra peruana.
El trabajo de investigación emplea la metodologÃa de diseño mecatrónico VDI 2221, para el cual se desarrolló el estudio del estado de las tecnologÃas. Asimismo, se estableció los requerimientos de la propuesta solución y el diagrama de funciones de este. A partir de lo estudiado se propuso soluciones para cada función del sistema mediante una matriz morfológica, con lo cual se propusieron tres conceptos solución que fueron contrastados mediante una evaluación técnica económica para determinar el concepto solución óptimo.
El desarrollo del concepto solución óptimo consta del diseño mecánico, electrónico y de control del sistema integrado. El diseño mecánico se compone de una estructura principal; un mecanismo de labrado con una herramienta para la creación de surcos en tierra suelta, un sistema de desplazamiento, dirección y suspensión del vehÃculo en terrenos con desniveles y pendientes máximas de 30°; y una estructura de almacenamiento de semillas con un mecanismo de siembra directa por grupos. Los mecanismos fueron validados con un factor de seguridad 1.5 como mÃnimo y un tiempo de recuperación en la suspensión de 3.2 s.
Por una parte, el diseño electrónico se realiza la selección de sensores para la autonomÃa; actuadores para el impulsar los mecanismos diseñados; sistema de comunicación; periféricos de interacción y seguridad; unidades de control para el procesamiento de algoritmos, y envió y recepción de señales; y fuentes de energÃa con sus respectivos reguladores. A partir de ello se obtiene un vehÃculo capaz de tener una autonomÃa de funcionamiento de 2.5 h con un factor de seguridad de 1.2. Por otra parte, en el diseño de control se desarrolla un algoritmo de autonomÃa, el cual realiza la labor agrÃcola en un entorno predeterminado. Los resultados de su funcionamiento se encuentran en validación. Finalmente, la sección de costos estima el valor monetario para la creación del sistema, este valor se mantiene por debajo del costo de los modelos industriales para vehÃculos autónomos destinados a la agricultura de presión
Enabling Faster Locomotion of Planetary Rovers with a Mechanically-Hybrid Suspension
The exploration of the lunar poles and the collection of samples from the
martian surface are characterized by shorter time windows demanding increased
autonomy and speeds. Autonomous mobile robots must intrinsically cope with a
wider range of disturbances. Faster off-road navigation has been explored for
terrestrial applications but the combined effects of increased speeds and
reduced gravity fields are yet to be fully studied. In this paper, we design
and demonstrate a novel fully passive suspension design for wheeled planetary
robots, which couples a high-range passive rocker with elastic in-wheel
coil-over shock absorbers. The design was initially conceived and verified in a
reduced-gravity (1.625 m/s) simulated environment, where three different
passive suspension configurations were evaluated against a set of
challenges--climbing steep slopes and surmounting unexpected obstacles like
rocks and outcrops--and later prototyped and validated in a series of field
tests. The proposed mechanically-hybrid suspension proves to mitigate more
effectively the negative effects (high-frequency/high-amplitude vibrations and
impact loads) of faster locomotion (>1 m/s) over unstructured terrains under
varied gravity fields. This lowers the demand on navigation and control
systems, impacting the efficiency of exploration missions in the years to come.Comment: 8 pages, 13 figure
Martian Lava Tube Exploration Using Jumping Legged Robots: A Concept Study
In recent years, robotic exploration has become increasingly important in
planetary exploration. One area of particular interest for exploration is
Martian lava tubes, which have several distinct features of interest. First, it
is theorized that they contain more easily accessible resources such as water
ice, needed for in-situ utilization on Mars. Second, lava tubes of significant
size can provide radiation and impact shelter for possible future human
missions to Mars. Third, lava tubes may offer a protected and preserved view
into Mars' geological and possible biological past. However, exploration of
these lava tubes poses significant challenges due to their sheer size,
geometric complexity, uneven terrain, steep slopes, collapsed sections,
significant obstacles, and unstable surfaces. Such challenges may hinder
traditional wheeled rover exploration. To overcome these challenges, legged
robots and particularly jumping systems have been proposed as potential
solutions. Jumping legged robots utilize legs to both walk and jump. This
allows them to traverse uneven terrain and steep slopes more easily compared to
wheeled or tracked systems. In the context of Martian lava tube exploration,
jumping legged robots would be particularly useful due to their ability to jump
over big boulders, gaps, and obstacles, as well as to descend and climb steep
slopes. This would allow them to explore and map such caves, and possibly
collect samples from areas that may otherwise be inaccessible. This paper
presents the specifications, design, capabilities, and possible mission
profiles for state-of-the-art legged robots tailored to space exploration.
Additionally, it presents the design, capabilities, and possible mission
profiles of a new jumping legged robot for Martian lava tube exploration that
is being developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.Comment: 74rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC
In Situ Soil Property Estimation for Autonomous Earthmoving Using Physics-Infused Neural Networks
A novel, learning-based method for in situ estimation of soil properties
using a physics-infused neural network (PINN) is presented. The network is
trained to produce estimates of soil cohesion, angle of internal friction,
soil-tool friction, soil failure angle, and residual depth of cut which are
then passed through an earthmoving model based on the fundamental equation of
earthmoving (FEE) to produce an estimated force. The network ingests a short
history of kinematic observations along with past control commands and predicts
interaction forces accurately with average error of less than 2kN, 13% of the
measured force. To validate the approach, an earthmoving simulation of a bladed
vehicle is developed using Vortex Studio, enabling comparison of the estimated
parameters to pseudo-ground-truth values which is challenging in real-world
experiments. The proposed approach is shown to enable accurate estimation of
interaction forces and produces meaningful parameter estimates even when the
model and the environmental physics deviate substantially.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, to be published in proceedings of 16th
European-African Regional Conference of the International Society for
Terrain-Vehicle Systems (ISTVS
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Sonic heritage: listening to the past
History is so often told through objects, images and photographs, but the potential of sounds to reveal place and space is often neglected. Our research project ‘Sonic Palimpsest’1 explores the potential of sound to evoke impressions and new understandings of the past, to embrace the sonic as a tool to understand what was, in a way that can complement and add to our predominant visual understandings. Our work includes the expansion of the Oral History archives held at Chatham Dockyard to include women’s voices and experiences, and the creation of sonic works to engage the public with their heritage. Our research highlights the social and cultural value of oral history and field recordings in the transmission of knowledge to both researchers and the public. Together these recordings document how buildings and spaces within the dockyard were used and experienced by those who worked there. We can begin to understand the social and cultural roles of these buildings within the community, both past and present
In Situ Investigation of the Martian Surface: Quantification of Dust Coverages in Gale crater and Abrasion Marks in Jezero crater
In situ measurements by Mars rover missions contribute to our understanding of surface geochemistry, past-depositional environments, and climate conditions that may have once supported life. Microscopic cameras capture high-resolution images of the surface allowing observations of contemporary surface and atmospheric processes. This thesis investigates microscopic images of rock surfaces to (1) measure the abundances of airfall dust covering horizontal surfaces in Gale crater, and (2) measure tool marks preserved in abrasion patches from Jezero crater. The research goals are to understand which variables are influencing surface deposits of airfall dust, and how target surface mineralogy is affecting tool mark preservation.
Previous studies have relied on orbital measurements of atmospheric opacity to study the seasonal suspension of Martian dust. Chapter 4 includes the longest single recording of surface dust coverages to date (~6 Mars Years) and contributes to the few studies that have quantified dust abundance at the surface. Using methods developed by Schmidt et al. (2018), dust coverages from 697 Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) microscopic images ranged from 0.4% to 76.6% and mirrored the results from atmospheric studies. Results indicate dust coverages decline in proximity to active aeolian dune deposits and increase with elevation. Airfall dust coverages on rocks increase annually as Mars enters a New Year (Solar longitude, Ls, ~0) and gradually decrease towards perihelion (Ls 251áµ’) when seasonal winds are strongest.
To examine unweathered rock interiors, the Mars 2020 mission uses a rock abrader to remove ~10 mm of surface coatings and rinds. Operation complications including flaws in rock (e.g., cracks, vugs, and voids) and shifting of the outcrop during abrasion, have caused 5 failed abrasion attempts. To better understand how physical properties influence the abrasion process, radial abrasion marks preserved in 10 successful abrasion patches were measured, relating abundance to mineralogy. Targets rich in primary igneous materials (i.e., crater floor targets) preserve greater counts and shorter abrasion lengths, compared to softer, sulfate- and carbonate- cemented sedimentary materials (i.e., delta front targets). The observations and results from this study will hopefully improve the prodapt algorithm that controls drilling parameters during abrasion and prevent future failed abrasion attempts
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