Planetary Rovers Workshop

ICRA13 Planetary Rovers Workshop

2013 International Conference on Robotics and Automation

Karlsruhe, Germany

Friday, 10 May 2013 (full day)

Abstract

With the recent success of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), ongoing mission of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER), and plans for European Space Agency (ESA) ExoMars, it is clear that mobile robots are integral to current and future planetary surface exploration. Further, new system concepts are attempting to expand the envelope of operations to rough terrain, steep slopes, and low gravity. These systems include both evolution and revolutionary design changes from electromechanical to computational and algorithmic. Advances in all areas are addressing space exploration scenarios, as well as analogous and complementary missions on Earth.

This full day workshop will present recent results from Mars surface operations, future mission designs, and related results from terrestrial field tests. Topics to be addressed include autonomous navigation and mobility in natural environments, autonomous manipulation for instrument placement and sample acquisition, autonomous science data processing, system design and architecture, and operations interface design and use. Core technologies include natural terrain sensing, novel mobility system designs, computation-restricted software performance, power-restricted system performance, and telemetry-restricted remote commanding. While the current target of much research is Mars exploration, discussion of application to other planetary bodies is desirable.

Organizer:

Richard Volpe

Section Manager, Mobility and Robotic Systems

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Mail Stop 198-219, 4800 Oak Grove Drive

Pasadena, CA 91109, USA

818-354-6328, volpe@jpl.nasa.gov

Workshop Host:

Kazuya Yoshida

Professor, Aerospace Engineering

Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

Motivation and Objective:

While planetary robotics exploration is an extremely costly endeavor, there is a relatively small part of the mainstream robotics community involved in this arena. Many reasons exist for this reality, but one of the issues is a lack of engagement with the community on the relevant issues, driven by scientific objectives or physical and fiscal constraints. Such lack of appreciation can also exist within the space robotics community itself, where different mission constraints are unique, and consume all attention away from similar problems and endeavors elsewhere. For instance, solutions for Mars and Moon exploration seem very similar as robotics problems, but other realities including cost, communication distances, thermal and radiation environments, planetary motions, and target system usage, can all lead to drastically different solutions.

Therefore, it is highly desirable to have an unhurried, detailed, technical exchange between space robotics system developers. Such an exchange is intended not to look like simply another, invited session in a conference full of sessions. Rather the intent is to allow for much longer and more detailed presentations, with time for insightful comments and questions from others building or operating similar systems, or wanting to learn more about this field. It is for this reason a full day is requested.

Also, by having some presentations by speakers from previous versions of this workshop, there is a chance to review progress or new directions, local to an institution or country, as well as across the field. To complement these mainstream participants, there is also a desire to have talks on newer novel ideas, or related research that has not been represented in the past meetings.

Agenda

#	name	Org	Country	topic	abstract	talk	movies				paper
*morning*
0	Richard Volpe, Kazuya Yoshida*	JPL	USA	Introduction		talk
1	Mark Maimone, Kazuya Yoshida*	JPL	USA	MSL Curiosity Rover Update	abstract	talk	1
2	Kazuya Yoshida	Tohoku Univ	Japan	Moonraker Rover	abstract	talk
3	David Thompson, David Wettergreen	CMU	USA	Robotic Science Autonomy	abstract	+
4	Pietro Baglioni, Luc Joudrier*	ESA	Europe	ExoMars	abstract	talk
5	Issa, Nesnas, Joel Burdick*	JPL, Caltech	USA	Axel Rover		talk					paper
6	Tim Barfoot	U Toronto	Canada	Place Revisiting	abstract	talk
7	Ryan McCoubrey	MDA	Canada	Canadian Rover Prototypes	abstract	talk
*afternoon*
8	Thomas Röhr	DFKI	Germany	RIMRES	abstract	talk					paper
9	Takashi Kubota	ISAS	Japan	Intelligent Exploration	abstract	talk
10	Thierry Peynot	ACFR	Austrailia	Learning Traversability and Planning	abstract	talk
11	Yashodhan Nevatia	SAS	Belgium	Terrain Trafficability	abstract	talk	1	2	3	4	paper
12	Mark McClelland	Cornell	USA	Relational Mapping for Operations	abstract	talk
13	Velin Dimitrov	Worcester Poly	USA	Autonomous Exploration	abstract	talk	1	2
14	Kazuya Yoshida	Tohoku Univ	Japan	group discussion
	* presenter
	+ unable to attend