Attitude and Position Estimation on the Mars Exploration Rovers

Ali, Khaled; Vanelli, Charles A.; Biesiadecki, Jeffrey J.; Maimone, Mark; Cheng, Yang; Martin, A. Miguel San; Alexander, James W.

doi:10.1109/icsmc.2005.1571116

Cited by 80 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…During mission development, the default approach to position estimation for the rovers was to initialize attitude while stationary, using sun sensing and accelerometers (to sense the gravity vector), then to propagate attitude and position while driving using gyros and wheel encoders (Ali et al, 2005). It was recognized that this would be vulnerable to error due to wheel slip.…”

Section: Visual Odometrymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For MER, heading is updated periodically by sun sensing (Ali et al, 2005), since there is not enough magnetic field for a compass. The whole history of the rovers' trajectories are also estimated on Earth by bundle adjustment, using overlapping navcam images acquired periodically and using manually-assisted tie-point matching (Di et al, 2005;Li et al, 2006).…”

Section: Visual Odometrymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Computer Vision on Mars

et al. 2007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Increasing the level of spacecraft autonomy is essential for broadening the reach of solar system exploration. Computer vision has and will continue to play an important role in increasing autonomy of both spacecraft and Earthbased robotic vehicles. This article addresses progress on computer vision for planetary rovers and landers and has four main parts. First, we review major milestones in the development of computer vision for robotic vehicles over the last four decades. Since research on applications for Earth and space has often been closely intertwined, the review includes elements of both. Second, we summarize the design and performance of computer vision algorithms used on Mars in the NASA/JPL Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, which was a major step forward in the use of computer vision in space. These algorithms did stereo vision and visual odometry for rover navigation and feature tracking for horizontal velocity estimation for the landers. Third, we summarize ongoing research to improve vision systems for planetary rovers, which includes various aspects of noise reduction, FPGA implementation, and vision-based slip perception. Finally, we briefly survey other opportunities for computer vision to impact rovers, landers, and orbiters in future solar system exploration missions.

show abstract

Section: Visual Odometrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Visual Odometrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Computer Vision on Mars

et al. 2007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Usually the current rover's position and orientation are estimated by integrating the rover's motion (rover's change of position and orientation) from the time the motion began to the current time, assuming that the initial rover's position and orientation are known or previously estimated. In the MER rovers Spirit and Opportunity the rover's change of orientation (rover's rotation) is estimated from measurements of three-axis angular rate sensors (gyros) provided by an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) onboard the rover [6]. The rover's change of position (rover's translation) is estimated from encoder readings of how much the wheels turned (wheel odometry).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intensity-Difference Based Monocular Visual Odometry for Planetary Rovers

Martínez

2015

Cognitive Systems Monographs

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract.A monocular visual odometry algorithm is presented that is able to estimate the rover's 3D motion by maximizing the conditional probability of the intensity differences between two consecutive images, which were captured by a monocular video camera before and after the rover's motion. The camera is supposed to be rigidly attached to the rover. The intensity differences are measured at observation points only that are points with high linear intensity gradients. It represents an alternative to traditionally stereo visual odometry algorithms, where the rover's 3D motion is estimated by maximizing the conditional probability of the 3D correspondences between two sets of 3D feature point positions, which were obtained from two consecutive stereo image pairs that were captured by a stereo video camera before and after the rover's motion. Experimental results with synthetic and real image sequences revealed highly accurate and reliable estimates, respectively. Additionally, it seems to be an excellent candidate for mobile robot missions where space, weight and power supply are really very limited. IntroductionOver the past two decades, robotic rovers have been extensively used for planetary surface exploration and have demonstrated that unmanned missions are very practical and productive, as well as much cheaper and less risky than manned ones. Up to date, the most successful planetary rovers have been the following six-wheel rockerbogie rovers developed at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: the Mars Pathfinder mission rover Sojourner [1], the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) Spirit and Opportunity [2] and the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover Curiosity [3]. In order to increase the maximum exploration range from few tens of kilometers to hundreds of

show abstract

“…The Mars exploration rovers, Spirit and Opportunity [4], explored the surface of Mars and gathered a wealth of information using an attitude determination system with cameras and inertial sensors. Furgale et al [5] proposed a system that combined a sun sensor and an accelerometer, and showed its efficiency in experiments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitude determination of planetary exploration rovers using solar panels characteristics and accelerometer

Ishida

Takahashi

2014

Acta Astronautica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tIn this study, we propose a new attitude determination system, which we call Irradiancebased Attitude Determination (IRAD). IRAD employs the characteristics and geometry of solar panels. First, the sun vector is estimated using data from solar panels including current, voltage, temperature, and the normal vectors of each solar panel. Because these values are obtained using internal sensors, it is easy for rovers to provide redundancy for IRAD. The normal vectors are used to apply to various shapes of rovers. Second, using the gravity vector obtained from an accelerometer, the attitude of a rover is estimated using a three-axis attitude determination method. The effectiveness of IRAD is verified through numerical simulations and experiments that show IRAD can estimate all the attitude angles (roll, pitch, and yaw) within a few degrees of accuracy, which is adequate for planetary explorations.

show abstract

Attitude and Position Estimation on the Mars Exploration Rovers

Cited by 80 publications

References 5 publications

Computer Vision on Mars

Computer Vision on Mars

Intensity-Difference Based Monocular Visual Odometry for Planetary Rovers

Attitude determination of planetary exploration rovers using solar panels characteristics and accelerometer

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About