ROVER, GO YOUR OWN WAY : SELF-CALIBRATING PSEUDOLITE ARRAY

This article describes a navigation system for Mars rovers that enables the vehicles to deploy autonomously and make sense of their landscape using self-referencing positioning systems. Developed by Stanford University Aerospace Robotics Laboratory and NASA Ames Research Center, it is called a Self-Calibrating Pseudo-Lite Array (SCPA). Instead of determining position through GPS satellite arrays, it consists of stationary GPS pseudolite transceivers in a ground- based array, which provides drift-free, centimeter-level and three- dimensional relative positioning in a local area. When paired with an obstacle-avoidance system, it could enable path planning for short and long traverses. Its locally based navigation would reduce the number of command cycles needed to drive rovers. The self-calibration feature makes unnecessary the previously required a priori survey to determine the precise location of the ground array. Detailed schematics and illustrations of field demonstration. Future research will involve multiple rovers and interactions with aerial surveying systems.