ROBOT AUTONOMY FOR ACQUIRING IMAGERY FOR PLANETARY PIT MODELLING

Harsh Sharma

Abstract: Satellite imagery has provided concrete evidence for planetary caves, pits and lava tubes. Lunar pits and lava tubes have caught the fancy of many space organizations as they plan to set-up a base on the moon for future space missions. Pits serve as a safe haven from the radiation, extreme temperature variations and probable micro-meteorite impacts. The inconsistent geometry and varying lighting conditions about the pit makes it challenging to obtain a high-resolution oblique views of the interior of the pit through satellites. This necessitates getting close to the edge of the pit. This abstract presents an autonomous robotic system which when released from the lander navigates to a lunar pit, avoiding obstacles and steep slopes on it’s way. It then circumnavigates the pit, getting close to the edge of the pit at various vantage locations around the pit and captures the illuminated walls of the pit. These images can be used to generate a 3D model of the pit which would be of immense importance for future scientific missions. The entire mission is expected to be completed within a single lunar day devoid of human intervention. The major contributions of the work include novel algorithms to plan path around a lunar pit accounting for the changing illumination and validating the same in a simulated lunar environment.