baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) (12/18/90)
Ad Astra, December 1990
"Auto-Piloting"
There's a little patch of Mars out on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's
back lot. The rugged arroyo dry river terrain near the JPL facility in
Pasadena, California, is the site for a recent test of "Robby", a
semi-autonomous navigation system for a planet-roving vehicle.
Last September, JPL engineers put Robby through its paces. The device
covered a 100-meter course in less than four and a half hours, cautiously
moving about two meters at a time, then stopping to survey the next two
meters.
Certainly, as far as speed goes, Robby will never get a traffic ticket.
What the test demonstrated, however, was that the vehicle's stereo ranging
cameras perceived the terrain ahead of its wheels in three dimensions.
Using artificial intelligence, the rover plotted out, without human help,
a safe route acrosst the arroyo.
According to Roger Bedard Jr., JPL's planetary rover project manager,
the 1000 kilogram Robby is a six-wheeled, three-body articulated vehicle.
It measures four meters long, one and a half meters wide and two and a half
meters high. It comes complete with a commercial robot arm attached to it
fron body.
JPL space engineers have long-range technology development goal for a
self-contained rover to travers 20 kilometers in on day.
Rover are being considered for many applications. JPL's overall program
is dedicated to develop both Lunar and planetary rovers for exploration,
mining and construction tasks. Roving devices are expected to play key
roles as precursors for the Space Exploration Initiative, specifically to
provide an all-clear before humans touch down on Mars. The Soviet Union,
France and Japan also have technology development programs for building
autonomous planetary rovers.
___ _____ ___
/_ /| /____/ \ /_ /|
| | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov
___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov
/___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 |
|_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 |