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Modular Field Robots for Extraterrestrial Exploration

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Abstract

Modular design methodology enables rapid reconfigurability for functional changes, robustness to failures and space utilisation for transportation. In the case of planetary exploration robots, there is promise in modular robots that are able to reconfigure themselves for exploration of unknown terrains. This paper presents a design and controller architecture for modular field robots that can be rapidly assembled in a variety of functional configurations. A key challenge of building a functional robot out of modular units is the ability to seamlessly add, remove and replace individual units to enable functional improvements as well as adapt to terrain requirements. We present a representative modular wheel design and a distributed controller architecture able to create a range of bespoke multi-wheeled configurations capable of traversal on a variety of terrains during simulated failure scenarios. The self-contained wheeled unit has energy, computation communication, and actuation modules and does not require any modification or physical customization in the field during deployment enabling a seamless plug and play behaviour. The hierarchical control structure runs a body controller node that decomposes a whole body motion requested from a higher level planner to generate a sequence of actuation goals for each of the modules, while a local controller node running on each of the modules ensures that the desired actuation is adapted to the configuration, load and terrain characteristics.

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Abbreviations

ICR:

Instantaneous centre of rotation

URDF:

Unified Robot Description Format

\(V_{{\text{B}}}\) :

Velocity of the robot body

\(r_{{{\text{a}}1/{\text{B}}}}\) :

Radius from the robot body to actuator 1

\(\theta\) :

Angle from the body to the wheels reference frame

\(\beta\) :

State of steering actuator

\(\beta_{{\text{s}}}\) :

Controllable steering actuator

\(\beta_{{\text{f}}}\) :

Failed steering actuator

\(\phi\) :

State of drive actuator

\(\dot{\phi }\) :

Controllable drive actuator

\(\phi\) :

Failed drive actuator

\({\text{NW}}_{n}\) :

State of an individual NeWheel

\({\text{NR}}\) :

State of robot instance

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Acknowledgements

The work in this project was fully funded by the CSIRO Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group. All correspondence should be addressed to troy.cordie@csiro.au or tirtha.bandy@csiro.au.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group, CSIRO, 1 Technology Ct, Pullenvale, QLD, 4069, Australia

    Troy Cordie, Ryan Steindl, Ross Dungavell & Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay

  2. The Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George St, Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia

    Troy Cordie

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  1. Troy Cordie
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Correspondence to Troy Cordie.

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Cordie, T., Steindl, R., Dungavell, R. et al. Modular Field Robots for Extraterrestrial Exploration. Adv. Astronaut. Sci. Technol. 3, 37–47 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42423-020-00055-0

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