Autonomous planetary rover at Carnegie Mellon
This report describes progress in research on an autonomous robot for planetary exploration. In 1989, the year covered by this report, a six-legged walking robot, the Ambler, was configured, designed, and constructed. This configuration was used to overcome shortcomings exhibited by existing wheeled and walking robot mechanisms. The fundamental advantage of the Ambler is that the actuators for body support are independent of those for propulsion; a subset of the planar joints propel the body, and the vertical actuators support and level the body over terrain. Models of the Ambler's dynamics were developed and the leveling control was studied. An integrated system capable of walking with a single leg over rugged terrain was implemented and tested. A prototype of an Ambler leg is suspended below a carriage that slides along rails. To walk, the system uses a laser scanner to find a clear, flat foothold, positions the leg above the foothold, contacts the terrain with the foot, and applies force enough to advance the carriage along the rails. Walking both forward and backward, the system has traversed hundreds of meters of rugged terrain including obstacles too tall to step over, trenches too deep to step in, closely spaced rocks, and sand hills. In addition, preliminary experiments were conducted with concurrent planning and execution, and a leg recovery planner that generates time and power efficient 3D trajectories using 2D search was developed. A Hero robot was used to demonstrate mobile manipulation. Indoor tasks include collecting cups from the lab floor, retrieving printer output, and recharging when its battery gets low. The robot monitors its environment, and handles exceptional conditions in a robust fashion, using vision to track the appearance and disappearance of cups, onboard sonars to detect imminent collisions, and monitors to detect the battery level.