Scientific Exploration of Challenging Planetary Analog Environments with a Team of Legged Robots
Abstract
The interest in exploring planetary bodies for scientific investigation and in situ resource utilization is ever-rising. Yet, many sites of interest are inaccessible to state-of-the-art planetary exploration robots because of the robots’ inability to traverse steep slopes, unstructured terrain, and loose soil. In addition, current single-robot approaches only allow a limited exploration speed and a single set of skills. Here, we present a team of legged robots with complementary skills for exploration missions in challenging planetary analog environments. We equipped the robots with an efficient locomotion controller, a mapping pipeline for online and postmission visualization, instance segmentation to highlight scientific targets, and scientific instruments for remote and in situ investigation. Furthermore, we integrated a robotic arm on one of the robots to enable high-precision measurements. Legged robots can swiftly navigate representative terrains, such as granular slopes beyond 25°, loose soil, and unstructured terrain, highlighting their advantages compared with wheeled rover systems. We successfully verified the approach in analog deployments at the Beyond Gravity ExoMars rover test bed, in a quarry in Switzerland, and at the Space Resources Challenge in Luxembourg. Our results show that a team of legged robots with advanced locomotion, perception, and measurement skills, as well as task-level autonomy, can conduct successful, effective missions in a short time. Our approach enables the scientific exploration of planetary target sites that are currently out of human and robotic reach. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000622801Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Science RoboticsVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
AAASSubject
Robotics; Planetary Exploration; Space Robotics; Legged Robotics; Space ExplorationOrganisational unit
09570 - Hutter, Marco / Hutter, Marco
02284 - NFS Digitale Fabrikation / NCCR Digital Fabrication
Funding
-- - NCCR Digital Fabrication (SNF)
Related publications and datasets
Is supplemented by: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/595537
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