Terrain Sensing for Planetary Rovers

The success of a science mission in the context of surface planetary exploration is tightly connected with the rover’s ability to detect the type of supporting surface. This research aims to develop a general approach to address the terrain awareness issue relying entirely on proprioceptive sensing, i.e. measuring motion states and parameters dependent on the way the vehicle interacts with the terrain. Relevant proprioceptive features are analyzed in terms of ability in discriminate terrain types towards the development of a ground classifier that can work on-line during regular operations. Experimental data obtained from the exploration rover Sherpa TT are used for field validation of the proposed approach.