Abstract-A complete piloting control subsystem for a highly autonomous long range rover will be defined in order to identify the key control functions needed to achieve continuous driving. This capability can maximize range and number of interesting scientific sites visited during the limited life time of a planetary rover. To achieve continuous driving, a complete set of techniques have been employed: fuzzy based control, real-time artificial intelligence reasoning, fast and robust rover position estimation based on odometry and angular rate sensing, efficient stereo vision elevation maps based on grids, and fast reaction and planning for obstacle detection and obstacle avoidance based on a simple IF-THEN expert system with fuzzy reasoning. To quickly design and implement these techniques, graphical programming has been used to build a fully autonomous piloting system using just the techniques of classic control concepts of cyclic data processing and event driven reaction. Experimental results using the JPL rover Rocky 7 will be given in order to validate the mentioned techniques for continuous driving.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.