Pseudolite-Based Rover Navigation for Future Interplanetary Missions: An AI-Based Approach
摘要
Interplanetary missions have always been an area of special interest for both space researchers and the general public. On Earth, we have a well-formed navigation system unlike other planets. Thus, a pseudolite-based system for rover navigation will be a better option. Whenever a rover lands on the surface of any planet other than the Earth, the main challenges come in its navigational aspects and its motion planning. The rover should be in the line of sight of the lander so that it can continuously send the results of its scientific experiments done on board. If it moves away from the lander, then it would be tragic in terms of efforts laid, finance, and the precious proofs which were collected by the rover. In this paper, we propose pseudolite-based rover navigation for future interplanetary missions using an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based approach. In our proposed scheme, we have laid focus on three aspects. Firstly, on the calibration of the pseudolite position on the extra-terrestrial surface using bidirectional ranging which is a pre-requisite for navigation on other planets, where any manual intervention is not possible. Furthermore, navigation system needs to be intelligent enough so that whenever required, rover may take decisions autonomously using its own intelligence. This is where AI plays a significant role. We would be positioning the rover using bidirectional ranging measurements. It is a conventional double differencing technique with triangulation to find the position. Finally, the path planning of rover. The path planning would be done by the rover on board using artificial intelligence which has been integrated with bidirectional ranging for accurate positioning of rover while it is moving over the extra-terrestrial surface. The position of the rover was found up to a centimeter-level accuracy using five pseudolites while executing its motion planning algorithm.