Asteroid Wide Area Exploration System Using Plural Small Rovers and Wireless Sensor Network

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24500195
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Perception information processing/Intelligent robotics
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: MIKAWA Masahiko 筑波大学, 図書館情報メディア系, 准教授 (40361357)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 小惑星探査 / 探査ローバ / 探査ロボット / センサネットワーク / 相対距離推定

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We are proposing an asteroid exploration robot system consisting of plural small size rovers. 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 efficiently. (2)Since the mesh network has redundant communication paths, our exploration system has more robustness against some troubles. (3)It is possible to estimate the relative distances among plural rovers by using the mesh network.

Free Research Field

知能ロボット