Strategies for unmanned lunar rovers : Integration of teleoperation and autonomy based on field testing

Introduction: The limits on effective rover operations based on command/response latency need additional exploration. One of the chief operations of scientific instrumentation depends on proper placement of the rover to conduct such operations. This placement begins with driving to the site of interest, then approaching the target of interest, and finally deploying the instrumentation. Our goal is to more clearly define the limits of rover interactivity due to latency and identify tasks that can be performed by teleoperations, and those that must be performed autonomously. In order to quickly access targets of interest, we propose the use of a robust rover design and operating strategy that incorporates features from two previous field tests. The resultant system allows the rover to more efficiently and effectively traverse a risky environment and reduce human error. Teleoperated Rover (“Copernicus”): In order to demonstrate many key capabilities necessary to conduct a previously proposed lunar mission, we developed a prototype robotic vehicle (Figure 1) and tested it in terrain representative of the lunar crater, Copernicus (95 km diameter). Our rover mobility requirements include: 30 cm/sec forward progress while encountering 30° slopes, and 30 cm obstacles over 30% of a surface. We chose these requirements to facilitate the exploration of a significant portion of the floor of Copernicus crater during the first lunar day of operations.