Multicriteria Evaluation of a Planetary Rover

Evaluation of mobile robots is a multidimensional problem. There are many performance indices that can be used to compare and evaluate mobile robots. Examples are speed, stability etc. A natural framework for the evaluation of mobile robots is multicriteria evaluation the science of evaluation functions whose output is nonscalar. In this paper we present a methodology for mission oriented mobile robot evaluation using a multicriteria framework. The methodology is illustrated by implementation on a four wheeled micro-rover class robot for mobility performance in a simulated Martian terrain. Our methodology makes use of nondimensional quantities which measure rover mobility with respect to its surroundings so that rovers of diierent sizes may be meaningfully compared. Ongoing and future work is discussed with regard to implementing the methodology on another robot built in our lab and predicting the values of the evaluation functions using validated simulations.