Extended Navigation Capabilities for a Future Mars Science Helicopter Concept

Delaune, Jeff; Bayard, David S.; Dor, Harel; Hewitt, Robert A.; Sawoniewicz, Jacek; Kubiak, Gerik; Tzanetos, Theodore; Matthies, Larry; Balaram, J.

doi:10.1109/aero47225.2020.9172289

Cited by 15 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…A range visual-inertial odometry algorithm (xVIO) estimates the current pose of the UAV using a down-facing camera, an IMU, and a laser range finder (LRF). xVIO combines measurements from these three sensors in a tightly coupled approach [20] to overcome traditional weaknesses of VIO such as scale unobservability in the absence of inertial excitation, e.g. during critical maneuvers such as constant-velocity traverses or hovering with no motion.…”

Section: System Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Resolution Elevation Mapping and Safe Landing Site Detection with Applications to Planetary Rotorcraft

Schoppmann¹,

Proença²,

Delaune³

et al. 2021

2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)

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In this paper, we propose a resource-efficient approach to provide an autonomous UAV with an on-board perception method to detect safe, hazard-free landing sites during flights over complex 3D terrain. We aggregate 3D measurements acquired from a sequence of monocular images by a Structure-from-Motion approach into a local, robot-centric, multi-resolution elevation map of the overflown terrain, which fuses depth measurements according to their lateral surface resolution (pixel-footprint) in a probabilistic framework based on the concept of dynamic Level of Detail. Map aggregation only requires depth maps and the associated poses, which are obtained from an on-board Visual Odometry algorithm. An efficient landing site detection method then exploits the features of the underlying multi-resolution map to detect safe landing sites based on slope, roughness, and quality of the reconstructed terrain surface. The evaluation of the performance of the mapping and landing site detection modules are analyzed independently and jointly in simulated and real-world experiments in order to establish the efficacy of the proposed approach.

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Section: System Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Resolution Elevation Mapping and Safe Landing Site Detection with Applications to Planetary Rotorcraft

Schoppmann¹,

Proença²,

Delaune³

et al. 2021

2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)

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“…Once the {chute+backshell} system reaches its terminal velocity, a linkage mechanism extracts the rotorcraft from the backshell and places it at a pre-determined angle of attack with respect to the airflow. Vision-based navigation is initialized [6], and the rotors are spun up while still attached to the backshell. The rotorcraft release is altitude-triggered using the backshell altimeter.…”

Section: A Concept Of Operationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motivations and Preliminary Design forMid-Air Deployment of a Science Rotorcraft on Mars

et al. 2020

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Mid-Air Deployment (MAD) of a rotorcraft during Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) onMars eliminates the need to carry a propulsion or airbag landing system. This reduces the total mass inside the aeroshell by more than 100 kg and simplifies the aeroshell architecture. MAD's lighter and simpler design is likely to bring the risk and cost associated with the mission down. Moreover, the lighter entry mass enables landing in the Martian highlands, at elevations inaccessible to current EDL technologies. This paper proposes a novel MAD concept for a Mars helicopter. We suggest a minimum science payload package to perform relevant science in the highlands. A variant of the Ingenuity helicopter is proposed to provide increased deceleration during MAD, and enough lift to fly the science payload in the highlands. We show in simulation that the lighter aeroshell results in a lower terminal velocity (30 m/s) at the end of the parachute phase of the EDL, and at higher altitudes than other approaches. After discussing the aerodynamics, controls, guidance, and mechanical challenges associated with deploying at such speed, we propose a backshell architecture that addresses them to release the helicopter in the safest conditions. Finally, we implemented the helicopter model and aerodynamic descent perturbations in the JPL Dynamics and Real-Time Simulation (DARTS) framework. Preliminary performance evaluation indicates landing and helicopter operations can be achieved up to +5 km MOLA (Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter reference).

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“…This problem is critical problem for applications which must rely on accurate VIO scale estimates for control. Our work is motivated by Mars helicopters [1], [2], but it is applicable to planetary, military, and urban robots in general; as well as indoor or underground traverses along a straight corridor or tunnel.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This problem is critical problem for applications which must rely on accurate VIO scale estimates for control. Our work is motivated by Mars helicopters [1], [2], but it is applicable to planetary, military, and urban robots Manuscript received: October, 15, 2020; Revised January, 12, 2021; Accepted February, 5, 2021.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This generalization addresses an important need in the field of robotics as well as for future Mars helicopters. The current paper is a journal extension of a previous conference paper [2], which focused specifically on the Mars helicopter application. This included a real-time demonstration with candidate spaceflight hardware operating over Mars-like terrain.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Range-Visual-Inertial Odometry: Scale Observability Without Excitation

Delaune

Bayard

2021

IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett.

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Traveling at constant velocity is the most efficient trajectory for most robotics applications. Unfortunately without accelerometer excitation, monocular Visual-Inertial Odometry (VIO) cannot observe scale and suffers severe error drift. This was the main motivation for incorporating a 1D laser range finder in the navigation system for NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. However, Ingenuity's simplified approach was limited to flat terrains. The current paper introduces a novel range measurement update model based on using facet constraints. The resulting range-VIO approach is no longer limited to flat scenes, but extends to any arbitrary structure for generic robotic applications. An important theoretical result shows that scale is no longer in the right nullspace of the observability matrix for zero or constant acceleration motion. In practical terms, this means that scale becomes observable under constant-velocity motion, which enables simple and robust autonomous operations over arbitrary terrain. Due to the small range finder footprint, range-VIO retains the minimal size, weight, and power attributes of VIO, with similar runtime. The benefits are evaluated on real flight data representative of common aerial robotics scenarios. Robustness is demonstrated using indoor stress data and fullstate ground truth. We release our software framework, called xVIO, as open source.

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Extended Navigation Capabilities for a Future Mars Science Helicopter Concept

Cited by 15 publications

References 22 publications

Multi-Resolution Elevation Mapping and Safe Landing Site Detection with Applications to Planetary Rotorcraft

Multi-Resolution Elevation Mapping and Safe Landing Site Detection with Applications to Planetary Rotorcraft

Motivations and Preliminary Design forMid-Air Deployment of a Science Rotorcraft on Mars

Range-Visual-Inertial Odometry: Scale Observability Without Excitation

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