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Abstract

Scarab is a prototype rover for lunar missions to survey resources, particularly water ice, in polar craters. It is designed as a prospector that would use a deep coring drill and apply soil analysis instruments. Its chassis can transform to stabilize its drill in contact with the ground and can also adjust posture to ascend and descent steep slopes. Scarab has undergone field testing at lunar analogue sites in Washington and Hawaii in an effort to quantify and validate its mobility and navigation capabilities. We report on results of experiments in slope ascent and descent and in autonomous kilometer-distance navigation in darkness.

Keywords

Scarab, Lunar, Lunar Analogue,drilling, ISRU, rover, autonomous, mobility, navigation, survey

Notes

Sponsor: NASA under John Caruso, Project Manager and Robert Ambrose, Program Scientist.

Associated Center(s) / Consortia: Field Robotics Center

Associated Project(s): Lunar Rover for Polar Crater Exploration

Text Reference

David Wettergreen, Dominic Jonak, David Kohanbash, Scott Jared Moreland, Spencer Spiker, and James Teza, "Field Experiments in Mobility and Navigation with a Lunar Rover Prototype," Field and Service Robotics, July, 2009.

BibTeX Reference

@inproceedings{Wettergreen_2009_6804,
   author = "David Wettergreen and Dominic Jonak and David Kohanbash and Scott Jared Moreland and Spencer Spiker and James Teza",
   title = "Field Experiments in Mobility and Navigation with a Lunar Rover Prototype",
   booktitle = "Field and Service Robotics",
   month = "July",
   year = "2009",
}

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