Telepresence control of mobile robots - Kilauea Marsokhod experiment

Abstract

Mobile robots will be a key requirement for future exploration of Mars. Mobility will be required to achieve the goals of the Mars Surveyor program and will be critical for science operations on Mars during future human missions. We describe here a field experiment to simulate science operations of a planetary surface rover on Mars and on the Moon. The Marsokhod planetary surface rover was deployed on Kilauea Volcano HI in February 1995 and operated via satellite communications from NASA Ames Research Center. Simulations of teleoperated rover missions on Mars and on the Moon were performed for three days each. During the simulations, science teams analyzed data from the Marsokhod and deduced the geologic setting and history of the field site. In the Mars simulation, the rover traversed 800 m of terrain, made observations at 8 science stations, and obtained several hundred images. We estimate that performing the same operation on Mars would require about 30 days. In the Lunar simulation, the rover was operated in real time with a continuous stereo video image transmission, and traversed 1.2 km in 15 hours of operation. The experiments show that mobile robots can be used to successfully perform field geology on other planets. We argue that rovers are needed for the Surveyor program to Mars which can traverse >10 km during a mission duration of one year. This capability could be achieved by cooperating with the Russians and using the Marsokhod rover.