NDLI: Autonomous vision-based tethered-assisted rover docking

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Tsai, D. Nesnas, I.A.D. Zarzhitsky, D.
Copyright Year	2013
Description	Author affiliation: Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA (Nesnas, I.A.D.) \|\| Sch. of Electr. Eng., Aalto Univ., Helsinki, Finland (Tsai, D.)
Abstract	Many intriguing science discoveries on planetary surfaces, such as the seasonal flows on crater walls and skylight entrances to lava tubes, are at sites that are currently inaccessible to state-of-the-art rovers. The in situ exploration of such sites is likely to require a tethered platform both for mechanical support and for providing power and communication. Mother/daughter architectures have been investigated where a mother deploys a tethered daughter into extreme terrains. Deploying and retracting a tethered daughter requires undocking and re-docking of the daughter to the mother, with the latter being the challenging part. In this paper, we describe a vision-based tether-assisted algorithm for the autonomous re-docking of a daughter to its mother following an extreme terrain excursion. The algorithm uses fiducials mounted on the mother to improve the reliability and accuracy of estimating the pose of the mother relative to the daughter. The tether that is anchored by the mother helps the docking process and increases the system's tolerance to pose uncertainties by mechanically aligning the mating parts in the final docking phase. A preliminary version of the algorithm was developed and field-tested on the Axel rover in the JPL Mars Yard. The algorithm achieved an 80% success rate in 40 experiments in both firm and loose soils and starting from up to 6 m away at up to 40° radial angle and 20° relative heading. The algorithm does not rely on an initial estimate of the relative pose. The preliminary results are promising and help retire the risk associated with the autonomous docking process enabling consideration in future martian and lunar missions.
Sponsorship	IEEE Ind. Electron. Soc.
Starting Page	2834
Ending Page	2841
File Size	1970971
Page Count	8
File Format	PDF
ISSN	21530858
DOI	10.1109/IROS.2013.6696757
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2013-11-03
Publisher Place	Japan
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Mars Computer interfaces Cameras Sensors Computational modeling Algorithm design and analysis Current measurement
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Control and Systems Engineering Computer Science Applications Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Software

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
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3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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