Abstract:

The success of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers has demonstrated the
important benefits that mobility adds to planetary exploration.  Very
soon, mission requirements will impose  that planetary exploration
rovers drive over-the-horizon in a single command cycle. This will
require an evolution of the methods and technologies currently
used. This paper presents experimental validation of our
over-the-horizon  autonomous planetary navigation. We present our
approach to 3D terrain reconstruction from large sparse range data
sets, localization and autonomous navigation in a Mars-like
terrain. Our approach is based on on-line acquisition of range scans,
map construction from these scans, path planning and navigation using
the map. An Autonomy Engine supervises the whole process ensuring the
safe navigation of the planetary rover. The outdoor experimental
results demonstrate the effectiveness of the reconstructed terrain
model for rover localization, path planning and motion execution
scenario as well as the autonomy capability of our approach.