Design, Development and Control of a Planetary Rover using ROS

Abstract

Robotic rovers are mobile robots developed to perform challenging tasks such as astronaut assistance, autonomous traversal and sample retrieval in extra-terrestrial environments. Nowadays, there is an increasing interest in space exploration programs. Many developed and developing countries worldwide have succeeded in inter-planetary rover missions, including India's space agency ISRO. Planetary rover plays an essential and definitive role in every space exploration mission. Consequently, high technology rovers are necessary and the need of the hour. The authors took up this project to participate in the International Rover Challenge 2020 [1]. In this paper, a six-wheeled rover with a modified rocker-bogie suspension was developed with mobility in rough terrain as the primary goal. The rover consists of a 5 DoF robotic arm assembly which can provide enhanced capabilities. The rover consists of a space-frame aluminium chassis which provides rigidity. The electrical and electronic sub-system consists of off-the-shelf motor drivers, DC brushed motors, and linear actuators (for robotic arm) [2]. Two 10Ah Lithium Polymer batteries were used to power the complete system. The communication system provides wireless control of the rover up to 1 km from the base station. Nvidia Jetson Nano [3] is at the heart of the rover, which is essential to run a SLAM-based autonomous algorithm at the edge with low latency. The autonomous algorithm uses the wheel and visual odometry data collected from IMU, GPS, Lidar, and cameras to calculate the rover's optimum path.