Lunar Rover Motion Planning and Commands

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

The Trail, 1999-12-09

https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/thetrail_all/2763/thumbnail.jp

NASA patent abstracts bibliography: A continuing bibliography. Section 2: Indexes (supplement 44)

A subject index is provided for over 5500 patents and patent applications for the period May 1969 through December 1993. Additional indexes list personal authors, corporate authors, contract numbers, NASA case numbers, U.S. patent class numbers, U.S. patent numbers, and NASA accession numbers