Monday, August 10, 2009

Field testing Utility Robots for Lunar Surface

Fong, et.al., American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
NASA Ames, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center & TRACLabs, Inc.

Since 2004, NASA has been working to return to the Moon. In contrast to the Apollo missions, two key objectives of the current exploration program is to establish significant infrastructure and an outpost. Achieving these objectives will enable long-duration stays and long-distance exploration of the Moon.

To do this, robotic systems will be needed to perform tasks which cannot, or should not, be performed by crew alone. In this paper, we summarize our work to develop "utility robots" for lunar surface operations, present results and lessons learned from field testing, and discuss directions for future research.

Download AIAA Space 2008 pdf, HERE.

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