SUN-SYNCHRONOUS NAVIGATION:TERRESTRIAL DEMONSTRATION AND ITS FUTURE FOR PLANETARY EXPLORATION
Sun-synchronous navigation is a technique that involves tracking the sun while exploring terrain. It is accomplished by traveling opposite to planetary rotation and in synchrony with the sun to always remain in sunlight. At appropriate latitude and speed, solar-powered rovers can maintain continual...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.128.9082 http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/sunsync/publications/01ssi.sunsync.pdf |
| Summary: | Sun-synchronous navigation is a technique that involves tracking the sun while exploring terrain. It is accomplished by traveling opposite to planetary rotation and in synchrony with the sun to always remain in sunlight. At appropriate latitude and speed, solar-powered rovers can maintain continual exposure to solar radiation sufficient for sustained operation. We are prototyping a robot, named Hyperion, for solar-powered operation in polar environments and developing sun-cognizant navigation methods to enable rovers to dodge shadows, seek sun, and drive sunsynchronous routes. We plan to conduct field experiments in a planetary-analog setting in the Canadian arctic to verify the algorithms that combine reasoning about sunlight and power with autonomous navigation and to validate parameters that will allow sun-synchronous explorers to be scaled for other planetary bodies. |
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