Automated obstacle mapping and navigability analysis for rover mission planning

Thomas G. Goodsell; Magnus Snorrason; Harald Ruda; Vitaly Ablavsky

doi:10.1117/12.439999

20 September 2001 Automated obstacle mapping and navigability analysis for rover mission planning

Thomas G. Goodsell, Magnus Snorrason, Harald Ruda, Vitaly Ablavsky

Proceedings Volume 4364, Unmanned Ground Vehicle Technology III; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.439999
Event: Aerospace/Defense Sensing, Simulation, and Controls, 2001, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

One of NASA's goals for the Mars Rover missions of 2003 and 2005 is to have a distributed team of mission scientists. Since these scientists are not experts on rover mobility, we have developed the Rover Obstacle Visualizer and Navigability Expert (ROVANE). ROVANE is a combined obstacle detection and path planning software suite, to assist in distributed mission planning. ROVANE uses terrain data, in the form of panoramic stereo images captured by the rover, to detect obstacles in the rover's vicinity. These obstacles are combined into a traversability map which is used to provide path planning assistance for mission scientists. A corresponding visual representation is also generated, allowing human operators to easily identify hazardous regions and to understand ROVANE's path selection. Since the terrain data often contains uncertain regions, the ROVANE obstacle detector generates a probability distribution describing the likely cost of a given obstacle or region. ROVANE then allows the user to plan for best-, worst-, and intermediate-case scenarios. ROVANE thus allows non-experts to examine scenarios and plan missions which have a high probability of success. ROVANE is capable of stand-alone operation, but it is designed to work with JPL's Web Interface for Telescience, an Internet-based tool for collaborative command sequence generation.

Citation Download Citation

Thomas G. Goodsell, Magnus Snorrason, Harald Ruda, and Vitaly Ablavsky "Automated obstacle mapping and navigability analysis for rover mission planning", Proc. SPIE 4364, Unmanned Ground Vehicle Technology III, (20 September 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.439999

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available