Summary Draft 1 of Mars Rover Mobility

          From the article "Mars Exploration Rover Mobility and Robotic Arm Operational Performance"(Tunstel et al., 2005), for NASA Rovers Spirit and Opportunity to traverse the rough and rocky terrain of Mars, a high torque, all-wheel drive, and double-ackerman steering system is employed for the 6-wheeled robots. A rocker-bogie suspension system allows the robots to traverse rocky terrain with a level difference of 25 centimetres without tipping over and rolling. 

            Each rover also has multiple camera pairs. Front and rear camera pairs are mounted on the body for hazard detection and avoidance. While another pair that is mounted at a fixed height of 1.3 metres above the ground is used for global path planning and visual odometry, which estimates the displacement of features captured in overlapping images from the camera (Tunstel et al., 2005).

          Tunstel, E., Maimone, M., Trebi-Ollennu, A., Yen, J., Petras, R., & Wilson, R. (2005). Mars exploration rover mobility and robotic arm operational performance. https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/publications/Mark_Maimone/MobIDDPerf90sols.pdf


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