Affiliation:
1. Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Wave Information Technology and Metrology of Zhejiang Province, College of Information Engineering, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, China
2. Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC), Beijing 100094, China
3. Science and Technology on Aerospace Flight Dynamics Laboratory, Beijing 100094, China
Abstract
Terrain traversability analysis (TTA), the key to the navigation of planetary rovers, is significant to the safety of the rover. Therefore, owing to its complexity, the Martian terrain is worth analysing comprehensively based on the terrain variability and hazard level. In this work, we propose a novel method for terrain traversability analysis for the path planning of planetary rovers by integrating Martian terrain geometry features with terrain semantic information, which includes geometry and environmental perception (GEP). Specifically, we deploy semantic segmentation to classify common terrain types, such as rocks, bedrocks, and sand, obtaining semantic information as one part of terrain traversability analysis at the same time. Simultaneously, the point cloud is generated by using binocular images from the planetary rover navigation camera (Navcam) to construct a 2.5D elevation map of the environment to analyse the geometric characteristics of the terrain. Besides, we implement path planning based on the results of TTA-GEP. Overall, our proposed method improves the performance of the terrain traversability analysis and reduces the risk of planetary rovers while detecting in an unstructured environment.
Funder
Key Research and Development Projects in Zhejiang Province