Technology and Field Demonstration of Robotic Search for Antarctic Meteorites

Abstract

Abstract:Meteorites are the only significant source of material from other planets and asteroids, and therefore are of immense scientific value. Antarctica's frozen and pristine environment has proven to be the best place on Earth to harvest meteorite specimens. The lack of melting and surface erosion keep meteorite falls visible on the ice surface in pristine condition for thousands of years. In this article we describe the robotic technologies and field demonstration that enabled the first discovery of Antarctic meteorites by a robot. Using a novel autonomous control architecture, specialized science sensing, combined manipulation and visual servoing, and Bayesian classification, the Nomad robot found and classified five indigenous meteorites during an expedition to the remote site of Elephant Moraine in January 2000. This article first overviews Nomad's mechatronic systems, and details the control architecture that governs the robot's autonomy and classifier that enables the autonomous interpretation of scientific data. It then focuses on the technical results achieved during field demonstrations at Elephant Moraine. Finally, the article discusses the benefits and limitations of robotic autonomy in science missions. Science autonomy is shown as a capable and expandable architecture for exploration and in situ classification. Inefficiencies in the existing implementation are explained with a focus on important lessons that outline future work.

Developing monocular visual pose estimation for arctic environments

“…The Nomad project (Apostolopoulos et al, 2000) at Carnegie Mellon University was designed for autonomous meteorite location in the antarctic moraines. The Elephant Moraine, where the Nomad was deployed, is essentially a sheet of blue ice littered with rocks ranging in size Figure 3.…”

A new terrain mapping method for mobile robots obstacle negotiation

“…Research efforts on terrain mapping have been devoted to indoor environments [1], outdoor, off-road terrain [2,3,4], as well as planetary terrain [5,6,7]. Most of the existing methods employ stereovision [2,3,4,7], which is sensitive to environmental condition (e.g., ambient illumination) and has low range resolution and accuracy. As an alternative or supplement, 3-D Laser Rangefinders (LRFs) have been employed since the early nineties [5,6,8].…”

Solar navigational planning for robotic explorers

“…Telemetry data provided verification of pattern following and solar power generation, from tests in Pittsburgh, Williams Field near McMurdo, Antarctica, and at a remote site called Elephant Moraine 160 miles from McMurdo. Further results are described in [1]. Path planning incorporating shadows was tested only in simulation, as the Antarctic field test locations were primarily flat, with very little shadowing.…”