ICRA Workshop 2010

Robotics Technology for Planetary Surface Exploration
Takashi Kubota (JAXA)
Email: kubota@isas.jaxa.jp
In Japan new lunar or planetary exploration missions including landers and rovers areearnestly under study. Those missions will follow up SELENE (SELenoligical Engineering
Explorer), a lunar global remote sensing mission. One of main missions for lunar robotics
exploration in post SELENE missions is to demonstrate the technologies for lunar or planetary
surface exploration and human activities on the moon in the near future. They will cover
pin-point landing technology, reliable landing scheme with obstacle avoidance, safe landing
mechanism on rough terrain, exploration rover, tele-science and tele-operation technology,
automated construction etc. The following top science will also be conducted in the robotics
mission. The working group was also established in 2008 in Japan to study Japanese Mars
exploration. In the preliminary study, two orbiters and some landers cooperatively explore Mars.
Some explorers, such as surface exploration rovers, wide area exploration by airplanes,
subsurface exploration by mole type robots are also under study.
The working group has been conducting the feasibility study of advanced technologies forlunar or planetary robotics exploration. Unmanned mobile robots are expected for the detailed
surface exploration of the moon or Mars, because rovers can travel safely over a long distanceand observe what to see by some scientific instruments. Therefore the rover R&D groupdeveloped innovative test-bed rovers with a new mobility system, lightweight manipulators, andadvanced guidance and navigation functions as shown in Fig.1. The developed test-beds have anew suspension system, which consists of a four-wheel drive suspension system and two activeswheels. The proposed system is designed to distribute the load of weight equally to all six wheels
whenever the rover climbs up or down, and then provides high degree of mobility for the rover.
Smart manipulators with a new end-effector are also developed to perform the in-situ analysis ordirect observation on the surface as shown in Fig.2. The developed end-effector has two kinds offunctions, gripping and scooping. The experimental results for sample collection show theeffectiveness of the developed end-effector. A novel digging robot is also developed as shown inFig.3. The test-bed rovers install a single camera system, a stereo vision system, an inertial
measurement systems, a scan typed laser range finder etc. The rover group developed advanced
navigation and guidance methods including a terrain recognition scheme, a path planningalgorithm, a self-positioning method, an intelligent tele-driving system.
Firstly, the current roadmap for Japanese solar exploration is introduced in this workshop.
Then the author describes planetary robotic exploration scenario by mobile explorers. The author
shows the system configuration of the developed test-bed rovers for long traverses androver-based scientific observation. This also presents the detailed functions and shows theperformance of the developed rover test-beds. The effectiveness of the developed smart
manipulator is shown by experimental results, sample collection, digging etc. The developed
digging robot is presented and experimental results are shown. The developed rover test-bed isused for feasibility study of the future lunar or planetary exploration missions. The exploration
scenario or strategy is also verified by the developed rover test-bed through some field tests.

Figure 1: Developed Test-bed Rovers

Figure 2: Developed Smart Manipulator

Figure 3: Developed Digging Robot