European Tracked Micro-Robot for Planetary Surface Exploration

Abstract

In the frame of future exploratory missions within the solar system the European Space Agency (ESA) has identified the need to extend therange of scientific measurement from the immediate vicinity of staticlanding stations to a wider radius of a few tens of meters. This paper describes the results of development work on a small mobile robot carried out within the framework of ESA`s Technological Research and Development Program. The purpose of the vehicle is to deploy instruments or sensor heads, acting as an `extended robotic arm` rather than covering large distance on various types of terrain,while maximizing the mass allocation for scientific equipment. Even with this limited mobility is becomes possible to expand the investigated area by several orders of magnitude compared to the capabilities of a purely landermounted payload. Applications of the vehicle could be the projected European mission to Mars, called `Mars Express`, to be launches in 2003, and future European missions to the Moon as well as potential international missions. The requirements call for a simple, robust device with a net vehicle mass of less than 2 kg and with low power consumption, capable to transport and positition a 1.4 kg package of scientific instruments. In this paper the main requirements are listed and the tracked concept called `Nanokhod`, which was chosen in response to them, is described, with emphasis on the control and data handling aspects, including navigation.