Distance control of rocket-propelled miniature exploration robot

Abstract

A rocket-propelled miniature robot is capable to explore sites that planetary rovers cannot reach with efficiency in locomotion distance per mass. The technical difficulty is the significant variance in its flight distance because of two factors: sensitivity of error in the center of gravity with respect to the thrust axis, and solid rocket engines deviance in thrusting force. To overcome the issue, our flight distance control strategy includes flight trajectory forming, and the flight trajectory prediction including the opposing shot. With our method, we experimentally showed the flight distance to the forward direction improved by a factor of four in variance reduction.