Small planetary rovers

Abstract

The authors argue that small rovers on the order of 1 to 2 kg are suitable for planetary exploration. Not only are they extremely cost effective but they also enable a number of new possibilities for scientific objectives. The authors describe their Attila robots which are prototypes for planetary rovers at the larger end of the scale (1.6 kg). The robots have 24 actuators and over 150 sensors, all connected via a local network to 11 onboard computers.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>