3D Perception and Modeling: Motion Level Teleoperation and Intelligent Autonomous Functions

Abstract

Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge 2005, where five teams managed to get autonomous vehicles to complete a 213 km track in the Mojave desert. Some conditions of the Grand Challenge do not hold for Space Robotics, especially the availability of a drivable track defined by GPS positions. In general, it can be argued that Space Robotics and especially Planetary Exploration have to deal with one of the most challenging unstructured environments. There is absolutely no infrastructure, the cost of mission failure is very high, and many core sensors that form the foundations of intelligent autonomous behaviors are not space proof, yet. But autonomy is not a binary all or nothing property. Intelligent autonomous functions can supplement different levels of teleoperation. In the context of the 2008 Lunar Robotics Challenge (LRC) of the European Space Agency (ESA), the Jacobs Robotics