Cooperative Docking Procedures for a Lunar Mission

Abstract

There are few existing robots that perform exploratory tasks in extraterrestrial areas, namely Mars or Moon. To use these robots efficiently, they can perform certain tasks autonomously. However, no system taking advantage of cooperative behaviour has yet been deployed. In this paper we present and evaluate two scenarios for cooperation in a space mission: (1) a wheeled rover and a legged robot performing a semi-automated docking task in order to improve general reach of the combined system, (2) a lander guiding a wheeled rover to its docking position.