Abstract
In a potential Mars sample return mission, a Mars rover is required to visit previously explored and mapped environments in order to retrieve previously collected samples for subsequent return to Earth. In such a mission, the rover needs to establish its position within a provided map to safely and efficiently plan a path toward the goal locations. In this work, we study the feasibility and performance of aerial-to-ground (A2G) localization of the Mars rover by registering rover’s ground imagery to an aerial map of a Mars analogue environment. Through empirical experiments at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars Yard, we present performance, robustness and sensitivity analysis for A2G localization in varying lighting conditions, viewing angles, terrain types and using different image feature detectors and descriptors.
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Acknowledgement
The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. ©2018 California Institute of Technology.
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Ebadi, K., Agha-Mohammadi, AA. (2020). Rover Localization in Mars Helicopter Aerial Maps: Experimental Results in a Mars-Analogue Environment. In: Xiao, J., Kröger, T., Khatib, O. (eds) Proceedings of the 2018 International Symposium on Experimental Robotics. ISER 2018. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33950-0_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33950-0_7
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