Planetary Robot Design, Development, and Control

A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310). This special issue belongs to the section "Astronautics & Space Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (7 July 2023) | Viewed by 2092

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Department of Industrial Engineering, Università Degli Studi di Padova, Via Venezia 1, 35131 Padova, Italy
2. Center for Studies and Activities for Space, Via Venezia 15, 35131 Padova, Italy
Interests: design, realization, and qualification of instruments and mechanisms for space applications; machine-vision-based localization methods for rovers; pose estimation; simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM); active vision
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Guest Editor
German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, Cologne, Germany
Interests: multi-robot SLAM; multimodal place recognition; learning-based localization and mapping approaches; multi-robot and mission coordination for long-term robotic autonomy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Information Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics ((DIEM), Università degli Studi di Salerno, Salerno, Italy
Interests: optimal control of redundant and cooperating robots; interaction control; on-board and on-ground control of space robots; planetary construction and exploration robots

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the Editorial Board of Aerospace, it is my honor to inform you about our upcoming Special Issue on Planetary Robot Design, Development and Control. Robots for planetary exploration have had, and still play, a fundamental role in the in-situ exploration of extraterrestrial planets and celestial bodies. Recent examples include the exploration of Mars by NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory and Mars 2020, as well as China's Mars rover Zhurong; and the exploration of the Moon by China’s Yutu rovers. A growing interest in in-situ operations for the exploration of planetary bodies is demonstrated by the many robotic missions planned for the coming years, such as ESA ExoMars, ROSCOSMOS Luna-25, and DLR/JAXA Mars Moons eXploration. Within the framework of NASA’s Artemis program, robots will be a fundamental asset for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) and astronaut-assistance tasks.

Join our efforts to share and extend the latest advancements in the design, development, and control of planetary robots, as regards their locomotion and manipulation abilities, sampling tools, sensors, control and navigation techniques, and strategies for mission operations. Please let us know if you can submit a manuscript by the end of December, or inform us of your feasible submission timeline. We look forward to your favorable response.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Design, development, and control of new locomotion systems for planetary rovers.
  • Design, development, and control of robotic arms and sampling tools.
  • Concept operations of planetary robotic missions.
  • Optimal on-board/on-ground control for energy-efficient operations.
  • Perception and navigation in GNSS-denied environments.
  • LiDAR-based and vision-based navigation and mapping for planetary robots.
  • Instrumentation and sensing for navigation in planetary environments.
  • Metrological evaluation and characterization of machine learning approaches for autonomous spacecraft and vehicles for space applications and planetary exploration.
  • Perception and manipulation for in situ analysis and sample collection.
  • Motion and interaction control for planetary cooperating robots.
  • Testing facilities for space environment reproducibility.
  • Exploration by means of rover swarms.

Dr. Sebastiano Chiodini
Dr. Riccardo Giubilato
Dr. Enrico Ferrentino
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Aerospace is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • rover design
  • In situ resource utilization (ISRU)
  • robotic arm design
  • robotic grasping
  • optimal planning and control of robots
  • swarm robotics
  • Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM)
  • Rovers concept of operations (CONOPS)

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 2458 KiB  
Article
Conceptual Design of a Robotic Ground-Aerial Vehicle with an Aeroelastic Wing Model for Mars Planetary Exploration
by Wolduamlak Ayele and Victor Maldonado
Aerospace 2023, 10(5), 404; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace10050404 - 26 Apr 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1310
Abstract
This paper presents the technical barriers and an analysis to advance the conceptual development of novel robotic ground-aerial vehicles (RGAVs) for exploration missions to Mars prior to human arrival and the establishment of a base. The concept for RGAVs for Mars planetary exploration [...] Read more.
This paper presents the technical barriers and an analysis to advance the conceptual development of novel robotic ground-aerial vehicles (RGAVs) for exploration missions to Mars prior to human arrival and the establishment of a base. The concept for RGAVs for Mars planetary exploration is novel, and will require innovations that are at various stages of development or use by the aerospace community. The RGAV concept will utilize inflatable wing technology, which increases the flexibility of the wing, and thus the possibility of structural dynamic instabilities that must be studied in the context of the Martian atmosphere. An aeroelastic model for wing bending is proposed, which considers wind gusts where the change in wind direction is up to ±6° from the mean, and a turbulence intensity of up to 20%. Their effect on the bending displacement of a semi-elastic wing is quantified, resulting in a maximum wing tip displacement of 16.2 cm. Low-fidelity computational aerodynamic analysis is performed using OpenVSP (3.31.1, NASA, Washington, DC, USA) to compute mean aerodynamic loads during cruise conditions at a cruise Mach number of 0.70. Finally, a non-linear adaptive control system is proposed for the longitudinal aerial dynamics and a proportional integral derivative (PID) controller is outlined for the ground roving lateral dynamics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planetary Robot Design, Development, and Control)
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