SPARTAN system: Towards a low-cost and high-performance vision architecture for space exploratory rovers

The “SPAring Robotics Technologies for Autonomous Navigation” (SPARTAN) activity of the European Space Agency (ESA) aims to develop an efficient, low-cost and accurate vision system for the future Martian exploratory rovers. The interest on vision systems for space robots has been steadily growing during the last years. The SPARTAN system considers an optimal implementation of computer vision algorithms for space rover navigation and is designated for application to a space exploratory robotic rover, such as the ExoMars. The goal of the present work is the development of an appropriate architecture for the vision system. Thus, the arrangement and characteristics of the rover´s vision sensors will be defined and the required computer vision modules will be presented. The analysis will be performed taking into consideration the constraints defined by ESA about the SPARTAN system.