Keywords: planetary surface exploration, Hyperion solar-power mobile robot, sun-synchronous navigation
Sun-synchronous navigation is accomplished by traveling opposite to planetary rotation, navigating with the sun, to remain continually in sunlight. At appropriate latitude and speed, solar-powered rovers can maintain continual exposure to solar radiation sufficient for sustained operation. We are pr...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2001
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.21.7046 http://www.ri.cmu.edu/pub_files/pub3/wettergreen_david_2001_1/wettergreen_david_2001_1.pdf |
| Summary: | Sun-synchronous navigation is accomplished by traveling opposite to planetary rotation, navigating with the sun, to remain continually 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, (Figure 1) for solar-powered operation in polar environments and developing sun-cognizant navigation methods to enable rovers to dodge shadows, seek sun, and drive sun-synchronous 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. The paper provides a preliminary report on progress towards sun-synchronous navigation. 1 |
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