A Survey of Rover Control Systems

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1 IJCSES International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering Systems, Vol.1, No.2, April 2007 CSES International c2007 ISSN A Survey of Rover Control Systems Amel ZERIGUI, Xiang WU, and Zong-Quan DENG 1 School of Mechanical Engineering, Harbin Institute of technology Harbin, Heilongjiang , China zerigui_amel@hotmail.com 2 School of Mechanical Engineering, Harbin Institute of technology Harbin, Heilongjiang , China xiangwu@hit.edu.cn 3 School of Mechanical Engineering, Harbin Institute of technology Harbin, Heilongjiang , China denzq@hit.edu.cn Abstract In this research we outline control system for wheels mobile rovers which are very important for recent and future research. The wheel type mobile rovers are one of the most practical and widespread robots. Wheels mobile rovers have a simple drive mechanism, and high energy efficiency. In this paper we present {2n+2, 0 n 3} wheels mobile rovers, presented by two wheels rover Super Mario, four wheels rover Pioneer 3-AT, six wheels rover Zaurus, and eight wheels rover Lunokhod. Each rover has difference design and difference control system. Key words: Rover control system, wheels mobile robot, rover hardware, rover communication. 1. Introduction People are interested in space, which is sometimes full of danger, for that the exploration space missions require robotic systems. USSR and USA were among the first countries to travel to space and visited some planet like Mars and Moon surface. China has already planned one mission to moon for Space exploration has many objectives such as to reach for evidence of past or present life, to better understand the climate history of the other planets, to determine what resources it provides for future exploitations [1,2,3], and to find energy resources in Moon. Wheels Mobile Robot (WMR) or Rover one kind of robot will play a crucial role in space mission s such as Sojourner [5], Rocky 7 [3,5] or Micro5 [17], Marsokhod [7,8,9] and Hybtor [10] or complex control procedure like SpaceCat [11] or Nanorover [12,13]. Design and control a WMR has been questioned in recent times due to increasing concern in space exploration. For that reason, the design and control of moving robot has become the focus of our research. The mechanical and control design of WMR are different from rover to rover, which are dependence to the requirement of the scientists or researchers and the environment of the research. In this paper we will discuss about control system for different wheels mobile rovers. Section 2 provides the definition of four rovers, two wheels rover Super Mario [14], four wheels rover Zaurus [15], six wheels rover Pioneer AT-3 [16] and eight wheels rover Lunokhod [17]. Section 3 summarizes the difference of the hardware, communication and control system method used for these rovers such as neural network and PID controller for Zaurus rover using in transportation [15], Fuzzy control for Pioneer [16]. Finally conclusion is given in section Wheels Rover Wheels rover are the optimal solutions for well-structured environment like roads or flat and regular terrain [18]. A control system is a device or set of devices to manage, command, direct or regulate the behavior of other devices or systems. There are two common classes of control systems, with many variations and combinations: logic or sequential controls, and feedback [24] or linear controls. There are also some algorithms applied in control systems such as fuzzy logic, which attempts to combine some of the design simplicity of logic with the utility of linear control [19, 30]. 2.1 Two wheels rovers Two wheels rovers have low stability by themselves. However, if combined with arms may produce high performance [2]. Manuscript received January 1, Manuscript revised March 1, 2007.

106 IJCSES International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering Systems, Vol.1 No.2, April 2007 Super Mario Rover: Super MARIO is a two wheels rover, the two wheels have radius r = 9.

The aluminum chassis of the robot measures 46 32 30.5 cm (l/w/h) [14]. wheels in only two sides, three wheels in left and the other three wheels in right fig 3.

The main reason to use the neural network in Zaurus rover is obtaining good performance [22] in spite of noisy data and disturbances.

used the neural network algorithm in development of a mobile robot Zaurus, they divided the control system into two parts, and those are controllers for horizontal motion and vertical motion.

2 Four wheels rover Four-wheel rovers are the vehicle shape that has most often been prototyped thus far.

Pioneer 3-AT: P3-AT offers an embedded computer option, opening the way for onboard vision processing, Ethernet-based communications, laser, DGPS, and other autonomous functions.

2 106 IJCSES International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering Systems, Vol.1 No.2, April 2007 Super Mario Rover: Super MARIO is a two wheels rover, the two wheels have radius r = 9.93 cm and are mounted on the same axle of length d = 29 cm. The wheel radius includes also the o-ring used to prevent slippage. The total weight of the robot (including batteries) is about 20 kg. The aluminum chassis of the robot measures cm (l/w/h) [14]. wheels in only two sides, three wheels in left and the other three wheels in right fig 3. Zaurus: Its control system based on a neural network and PID controllers. The main reason to use the neural network in Zaurus rover is obtaining good performance [22] in spite of noisy data and disturbances. The robot has the autonomous mode and the remote control mode using a Joystick. The rover can move at the maximum speed 0.38 m/sec. Masanori et al. used the neural network algorithm in development of a mobile robot Zaurus, they divided the control system into two parts, and those are controllers for horizontal motion and vertical motion. They proved that the neural network controller shows the abilities of filtering and extract the principal feature [1]. Fig. 1 Two Wheels Model Super Mario Rover 2.2 Four wheels rover Four-wheel rovers are the vehicle shape that has most often been prototyped thus far. Almost all of these assume a shape with two wheels in the front and two wheels in the back [1, 2]. Pioneer 3-AT: P3-AT offers an embedded computer option, opening the way for onboard vision processing, Ethernet-based communications, laser, DGPS, and other autonomous functions. In pioneer project fuzzy logic controller used for the path tracking of pioneer3 based on controlling robot at a higher level [16, 20, 21]. Fig. 2 Four Wheels Model Pioneer 3-AT Rover 2.3 Six wheels rover There have two types as shown in figure 3, 3.The first type has the wheels in four sides, one wheel in front and the second in the back, two wheels in the left and the other two wheels in the right, The second type has the Fig. 3 Six Wheels Model Zaurus Rover 2.4 Eight wheels rover This kind of rovers have eight wheels, four on the left and four on the right as shown in Fig 4. The main purpose of this kind of rover is space exploration such as Lunokhod fig 4. Lunokhod: the Soviet Union designed Lunokhod in It has created a new branch in the mobile vehicle engineering. That is mobile vehicle engineering for Space application [23]. It was designed to explore the moon surface and return pictures. Lunokhod has a mass of 900 kg and was designed to operate for 90 days while guided by a 5-person team from earth. Lunokhod explored the Mare Imbrium for 11 months, traveling 11 km while relaying television pictures and scientific data. The rover had two speeds, ~1 km/hr and ~2 km/hr. By using cameras mounted on the vehicle, a five-man team of controllers on Earth sent driving commands to the rover in real time. Power was supplied by batteries charged by a solar panel on the inside of a round hinged lid which covered the instrument bay. A Polonium-210 isotopic heat source was used to keep the rover warm during the lunar nights [17][25]. Lunokhod is remotely controlled [26, 27]. Table 1 shows the general proprieties of the four rovers.

A Survey of Rover Control Systems 107 Fig 4: Eight Wheels Model Lunokhod Rover Table1: Proprieties of the rovers Rover s Super Mario Pioneer 3 Zaurus Lunokhod name Wheels 2 4 6 8 number Weight 20 kg

Each wheel is independently driven by a DC servomotor by MCA supplied at 24 V with a peak torque of 0.56 Nm.

3 A Survey of Rover Control Systems 107 Fig 4: Eight Wheels Model Lunokhod Rover Table1: Proprieties of the rovers Rover s Super Mario Pioneer 3 Zaurus Lunokhod name Wheels number Weight 20 kg 12 kg 18 kg 900 kg Country Swaziland Canada Japan Russia 3. Control Systems 3.1 Hardware Super Mario: Contains two motors, transmission elements, electronics, and four 12 V batteries. Each wheel is independently driven by a DC servomotor by MCA supplied at 24 V with a peak torque of 0.56 Nm. Each motor is equipped with an incremental encoder counting ne = 200 pulses/turn and a gearbox with reduction ratio nr = 20 [14]. Pioneer AT-3: The P3-AT stores up to 252 watt-hours of hot-swappable batteries. Optional 8 forward and 8 rear sonar sense obstacles from 15 cm to 7 m. P3-AT's powerful motors and four wheels can reach speeds of 8 meters per second and carry a payload of up to 30 kg. The P3-AT uses 100 tick encoders with inertial correction recommended for dead reckoning to compensate for skid steering. Zaurus: Having six wheels linkage mechanism and a computer system. The diameter of each wheel is 0.10 m assuming that the robot can climb over the stairs of 0.20 m height. Each wheel has a 10 W motor for driving and can be controlled independently. Two steering motors are installed in the front and rear links. The computer system consists of four microcomputers to control motors and to measure motor currents, steer angles and rotation velocities, and a main computer for decision-making. Lunokhod: Is one of the space explorations, The Lunokhod itself consisted of a tub-like compartment with a large convex lid on eight wheels. It stood 135 cm high, 170 cm long and 160 cm wide, with a mass of 900 kg. The 8 wheels each had an independent suspension, motor and brake. Power was supplied by a solar panel on the inside of a round hinged lid which covered the instrument bay. A Polonium-210 isotopic heat source was used to keep the rover warm during the lunar nights. Scientific instruments included a soil mechanics tester, solar X-ray experiment, an astrophotometer to measure visible and UV light levels, a magnetometer deployed in front of the rover on the end of a 2.5 m boom, a radiometer, a photo detector (Rubin-1) for laser detection experiments, and a French-supplied laser corner-reflector [28, 29, 31]. 3.2 Communication The two wheels rover Super Mario communication based on PC communicate through a radio modem with serial communication boards on the robot. The maximum speed of the radio link is 4800 bit/s. Wheel angular velocity commands ωl and ωr are sent to the robot and encoder measures ΔφL and ΔφR are received for odometric computations. The four wheels rover Pioneer AT-3 can be controlled either by an onboard computer or by a computer through a wireless serial or TCP/IP connection. All the information from the onboard sensors such as the encoders, sonar, and gyroscope can be obtained through this connection and the reference linear and rotational speeds are sent through ARIA. By using computer system consists of four microcontrollers can communicate with Zaurus to control it. The 8 wheels rover Lunokhod had two speeds, ~1 km/hr and ~2 km/hr. Lunokhod was equipped with four TV cameras, three of them panoramic cameras. The fourth was mounted high on the rover for navigation, and could return high resolution images at different rates (3.2, 5.7, 10.9 or 21.1 seconds per frame). These images were used by a five-man team of controllers on Earth who sent driving commands to the rover in real time. Communications were through a cone-shaped omniantenna and a highly directional helical antenna. 3.3 Control Method Super Mario rover is controlled by a PID controller which is implemented by an 8-bit ST6265 microcontroller for each wheel, with a cycle time of Tc = 5 ms. The lower level controllers of the motors in Pioneer AT-3 are separated with a PID controller for each motor alone. The reference speeds and positions can be controlled. By using path tracking Fuzzy controller to direct the robot to follow the trajectory in a smooth and continues manner at the best possible precision.

4 108 IJCSES International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering Systems, Vol.1 No.2, April 2007 Zaurus as definition above is six wheels rover the designer used neural network and PID controller as control methods. They used the direct type of neural network controller which is designed by the way of making an inverse model of the mobile robot. The neural network control using in Zaurus is divided in two parts, those are controllers for the horizontal motion and vertical motion. The climbing motion is analyzed in the vertical plane, and the linkage and the wheels in both sides behave the same motion. The main object to use the PID controller in Zaurus control system is to compare the performance of the control with the neural network controller. Lunokhod control system depends on the self-propelled undercarriage gave mobility to this planetary rover. This undercarriage consisted of wheels, electric motors, suspension, and automatic motion-control, a complex of onboard sensors to monitor the assemblies and systems, and a device to transfer data to the telemetry system. The undercarriage had eight rigid drive-wheels with perforated, created rims. The wheels did not swivel, so the rover was turned by imparting different velocities to the left or right side. It was made up of an air-tight compartment containing equipment and a self-propelled undercarriage. It had a temperature-control system with an isotope heat source, a radio and television transmitter, a command receiver, a power plant with solar and back-up storage batteries, a remote control, a small-frame television, panoramic telephoto meters and a complex of scientific instruments [28, 29]. Table 3 summarized the control systems used for the four rovers, and fig 5 compare the maximum speed for all the rovers. Fig. 5 Maximum speed of the Rovers Rover s name Control system Table 3: Control systems of the rovers Pioneer 3 Zaurus Lunokhod Super Mario Neural network 4. Conclusion Fuzzy logic Neural Network + PID Controller Remote Control We have presented four kinds of wheels mobile rovers in this paper. The first kind is mobile rover with two wheels, the second is four wheels, the third is six wheels, and the fourth is eight wheels. We defined the difference control systems between the rovers. Our future work will focus on the design of control system which can be used to control all the rovers; having (2n+2 / 0 n 3) wheels by using FPGA technologies. Acknowledgments The authors of the paper would like to thank Abid Khan and Liu Bo for his pearls of wisdom and collaboration. References [1]M.Sato, K. Ishii, A Neural Network Based Control System for a Mobile Robot Employing Link Mechanism, Proceedings of the IEEE/ASME, International conference on Advanced Intelligent mechatronics Monterey, California, USA, July, 2005, pp [2]H. Shigeo, O. Naritoshi, S. Takaya, K. Hiroyuki, and Kan. Fundamental Considerations for the Design of a Planetary Rover. IEEE international Conference on Robotics and Automation 1995 IEEE. [3]S. Hayati, R. Volpe, P. Backes, J. Balaram, R. Welch, R. Ivlev, G. Tharp, S. peters, T. Ohm, R. Petras, S. Laubach, the rocky 7 Rover: A Mars Sciececraft Prototype. Proceeding of the 1997 IEEE International conference on robotics and automation, Albuquerque, New Mexico, April [4]H.W. Stone, Mars pathfinder microrover: A low-cost, lowpower spacecraft, in: Proceedings of the 1996 AIAA Forum on Advanced Developments in Space Robotics, Madison, WI, [5]R. Volpe, J. Balaram, T. Ohm, R. Ivlev, Rocky 7: A next generation Mars rover prototype, Journal of Advanced Robotics 11 (4), 1997, [6]T. Kubota, Y. Kuroda, Y. Kunii, I. Natakani, Micro-planetary rover Micro5, in: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space (ESA SP-440), Noordwijk, Netherlands, 1999, pp [7]A.L. Kemurdjian, V. Gromov, V. Mishkinyuk, V. Kucherenko, P. Sologub, Small Marsokhod configuration, in: Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Nice, France, 1992.

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An Innovative Space Rover with Extended Climbing Abilities T. Estier 1, Y. Crausaz 1, B. Merminod 1, M. Lauria 1, R. Piguet 1, R.

An Innovative Space Rover with Extended Climbing Abilities T. Estier 1, Y. Crausaz 1, B. Merminod 1, M. Lauria 1, R. Piguet 1, R. Siegwart 1 Abstract Autonomous mobile robots have become a key technology