Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Bonitz, R..
This paper will detail the experience of driving Opportunity through this alien landscape from the point of view of the Rover Planners, the people who tell the rover where to drive and how to use its robotic arm.
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This paper describes the science driven requirements for a robotic vehicle, which utilizes gravity, and both passive and active heating systems to drive ice to a liquid phase change state, in order to facilitate mobility.
The Mars Polar Lander (MPL) mission is the first planetary mission to use Internet-based distributed ground operations where scientists and engineers collaborate in daily mission operations from multiple geographically distributed locations via the Internet.
The Mars Polar Lander (MPL) mission is the first planetary mission to use Internet-based distributed ground operations where scientists and engineers collaborate in daily mission operations from multiple geographically distributed locations via the Internet.
The Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander will carry with it both a Robotic Arm and Rover to support various science and technology experiments.
The primary purpose of the Mars Volatiles and Climate Surveyor (MVACS) Robotic Arm is to support to the other MVACS science instruments by digging trenches in the Martian soil; acquiring and dumping soil samples into the thermal evolved gas analyzer (TEGA); positioning the Soil Temperature Probe (STP) in the soil: positioning the Robotic Arm Air Temperature Sensor (RAATS) at various heights above the surface, and positioning the Robotic Arm Camera (RAC) for taking images of the surface, trench, soil samples, magnetic targets and other objects of scientific interest within its workspace.
NASA exploration missions to Mars, initiated by the Mars Pathfinder mission in July 1997, will continue over the next decade. The missions require challenging innovations in robot design and improvements in autonomy to meet ambitious objectives under tight budget and time constraints. The authors are developing design tools, component technologies and capabilities to address these needs for manipulation with robots for planetary exploration. The specific developments are: 1) a software analysis tool to reduce robot design iteration cycles and optimize on design solutions, 2) new piezoelectric ultrasonic motors (USM) for light-weight and high torque actuation in planetary environments, 3) use of advanced materials and structures for strong and light-weight robot arms and 4) intelligent camera-image coordinated autonomous control of robot arms for instrument placement and sample acquisition from a rover vehicle.