Self-localization using plural small rovers for asteroid wide-area exploration

This paper presents a new robot system consisting of plural small size rovers for an asteroid exploration. Each rover can communicate with others using radio, and a wireless mesh network is configured on an asteroid's surface. Our proposed system has the following three advantages against a conventional exploration system using one or two rovers: (1) It is possible to explore a wider area of an asteroid. (2) Since the mesh network has redundant communication paths, it has more robustness against some troubles. (3) It is possible to estimate the relative distances among plural rovers by using the mesh network. This relative distance estimation is useful for asteroid analyses using sensors that rovers have. Simulation results reveal the validity and effectiveness of our proposed rover system with the wireless mesh network and the relative distance estimation method.