In situ robotic arm operations

Author

Trebi-Ollennu, Ashitey ; Volpe, Richard ; Bonitz, Robert G. ; Robinson, Matthew L. ; Carsten, Joseph

Author_Institution

NASA-JPL CALTECH, Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

16

Issue

4

fYear

2009

fDate

12/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

34

Lastpage

43

Abstract

This article compares and contrasts the operations of the robotic manipulators on the Mars Phoenix Lander and Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs), Spirit and Opportunity. Unlike the MERs, the Phoenix Mars Lander stays in one spot at a particular geographic location on the Martian surface with exploration emphasis on vertical mobility sampling. In this article the operations of Phoenix robotic arm (RA) were described during the prime mission and compare and contrast it with MER instrument deployment device (IDD) operations. In addition, the technology gaps were identified in operations and deployment of in situ manipulators in planetary exploration.

Keywords

manipulators; mobile robots; planetary rovers; Mars Exploration Rovers; Mars Phoenix Lander; Martian surface; in-situ robotic arm operations; instrument deployment device operations; planetary exploration; robotic manipulators; vertical mobility sampling; Geology; Instruments; Manipulators; Mars; Orbital robotics; Planets; Robots; Sampling methods; Soil; Spectroscopy; Space robotics; manipulation planning;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Robotics & Automation Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1070-9932

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MRA.2009.934820

Filename

5306924