Motion planning for Mars Rover

Abstract

This paper presents an global-optimal motion planner for Mars Rover. It accounts for traversability and dynamic stability due to vehicle dynamics and terrain topography. A given path is traversable if along it the vehicle is statically stable. The vehicle is dynamically stable if its velocity does not exceed the velocity limit, determined from tip-over, sliding, and contact constraints. The cost function for the optimization consists of the path distance divided by the lowest velocity limit along the path. It produces paths that are traversable (and are hence dynamically stable) at the widest speed range.