Research/ PLANETARY ROBOTICS
Onboard Autonomous Path Planning for a Planetary Exploration Rover
Alexandru RUSU, Sabine Moreno, Yoko Wanatabe, Mathieu Rognant, Michel Devy
Motion Planning & NavigationOpenAlex topic: Robotic Path Planning Algorithms · Perception & State EstimationOpenAlex topic: Robotics and Sensor-Based Localization · Learning-based MethodsOpenAlex topic: Reinforcement Learning in Robotics
The autonomous onboard navigation system of a Mars exploration robot should be designed to meet mission-specific constraints on energy consumption, memory and computation power, and time costs. The objective of this research is to study dynamic path planning algorithms and their implementation techniques, and to improve the existing navigation software developed in EDRES at CNES. Firstly, binary heap trees are introduced in the management structures of the path planning module to reduce computation time. Secondly, the actual A∗ algorithm for local path planning is replaced by Fringe Retrieving A∗ which reuses previous-step information to fasten the search process. Finally, D∗ Lite algorithm is applied for the global path planning when a-priori information on the global navigation map is available (provided by an orbiter, for example). All developed algorithms have been implemented, tested and evaluated in the CNES EDRES environment.