Lunar Microrover

Herideen-Woodruff, Watts; McGregor, Travis; Mayor, Marcela; Grubb, Corbin; Kinne, Lily; Powell, Caleb; Angell, Zachary; Fisher, William

Student Work

Lunar Microrover

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The goal of this project is to design a fully autonomous micro rover for the exploration and mapping of the Moon’s polar regions. NASA hopes to one-day land humans within these lunar polar regions, resulting in the need for an exploratory micro rover prototype. This project’s micro rover is designed to withstand and autonomously traverse the lunar regolith while serving as the theoretical prototype of NASA’s proposed idea. This is done using a 4-wheel rocker-bogie system connected to a primary pivoting point. The pivoting point allows for the rocker-bogie system to remain stable when in transit while also allowing the micro rover clearance over obstacles it may encounter on the lunar surface. The rover autonomously plans a path through the lunar terrain using an RRT* path planning algorithm. An Extended Kalman Filter is then used with IMU and GPS sensor data to estimate the rover’s orientation as it traverses. This data in addition to encoder-based odometry is fed into a feedback control system to drive the rover. As the project concluded, many criteria used for designing the micro rover were successfully achieved. The results from computer simulations and real-world testing involving various components acted as the justification for the design’s success and the functionality of the micro rover. Ultimately, this micro rover aims to advance the exploration and mapping of the Moon’s surfaces through autonomy.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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