An Addendum to NeBula: Towards Extending TEAM CoSTAR's Solution to Larger Scale Environments
Creators: name: Agha, Ali
name: Otsu, Kyohei
name: Morrell, Benjamin
name: Fan, David D.
name: Kim, Sung-Kyun
name: Ginting, Muhammad Fadhil
name: Lei, Xianmei
name: Edlund, Jeffrey
name: Fakoorian, Seyed
name: Bouman, Amanda
name: Chavez, Fernando
name: Kim, Taeyeon
name: Correa, Gustavo J.
name: Saboia, Maira
name: Santamaria-Navarro, Angel
name: Lopez, Brett
name: Kim, Boseong
name: Jung, Chanyoung
name: Sobue, Mamoru
name: Peltzer, Oriana Claudia
name: Ott, Joshua
name: Trybula, Robert
name: Touma, Thomas
name: Kaufmann, Marcel
name: Vaquero, Tiago Stegun
name: Pailevanian, Torkom
name: Palieri, Matteo
name: Chang, Yun
name: Reinke, Andrzej
name: Anderson, Matthew
name: Schöller, Frederik E. T.
name: Spieler, Patrick
name: Clark, Lillian M.
name: Archanian, Avak
name: Chen, Kenny
name: Melikyan, Hovhannes
name: Dixit, Anushri
name: Delecki, Harrison
name: Pastor, Daniel
name: Ridge, Barry
name: Marchal, Nicolas
name: Uribe, Jose
name: Dey, Sharmita
name: Ebadi, Kamak
name: Coble, Kyle
name: Dimopoulos, Alexander Nikitas
name: Thangavelu, Vivek
name: Varadharajan, Vivek S.
name: Palomo, Nicholas
name: Rosinol, Antoni
name: Chatterjee, Arghya
name: Kanellakis, Christoforos
name: Lindqvist, Bjorn
name: Corah, Micah
name: Strickland, Kyle
name: Stonebraker, Ryan
name: Milano, Michael
name: Denniston, Christopher E.
name: Sahnoune, Sami
name: Claudet, Thomas
name: Lee, Seungwook
name: Salhotra, Gautam
name: Terry, Edward
name: Musuku, Rithvik
name: Schmid, Robin
name: Tran, Tony
name: Kourchians, Ara
name: Schachter, Justin
name: Azpurua, Hector
name: Resende, Levi
name: Kalantari, Arash
name: Nash, Jeremy
name: Lee, Josh
name: Patterson, Christopher
name: Blank, Jennifer G.
name: Patath, Kartik
name: Kubo, Yuki
name: Alimo, Ryan
name: Almalioglu, Yasin
name: Curtis, Aaron
name: Sly, Jacqueline
name: Wells, Tesla
name: Ho, Nhut T.
name: Kochenderfer, Mykel
name: Beltrame, Giovanni
name: Nikolakopoulos, George
name: Shim, David
name: Carlone, Luca
name: Burdick, Joel
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: Robotics (cs.RO)
subject: Systems and Control (eess.SY)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences
subject: FOS: Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering
subject: FOS: Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering

description: This paper presents an appendix to the original NeBula autonomy solution developed by the TEAM CoSTAR (Collaborative SubTerranean Autonomous Robots), participating in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. Specifically, this paper presents extensions to NeBula's hardware, software, and algorithmic components that focus on increasing the range and scale of the exploration environment. From the algorithmic perspective, we discuss the following extensions to the original NeBula framework: (i) large-scale geometric and semantic environment mapping; (ii) an adaptive positioning system; (iii) probabilistic traversability analysis and local planning; (iv) large-scale POMDP-based global motion planning and exploration behavior; (v) large-scale networking and decentralized reasoning; (vi) communication-aware mission planning; and (vii) multi-modal ground-aerial exploration solutions. We demonstrate the application and deployment of the presented systems and solutions in various large-scale underground environments, including limestone mine exploration scenarios as well as deployment in the DARPA Subterranean challenge.