Towards a substantially autonomous aerobot for exploration of Titan

Robotic lighter-than-air vehicles, or aerobots, are strategic surveying and instrument deployment platforms for the exploration of planets and moons with an atmosphere, such as Venus, Mars and Titan. Aerobots are characterized by modest power requirements, extended mission duration and long traverse capabilities, and the ability to transport and deploy scientific instruments and in-situ laboratory facilities over vast distances. With the arrival of the Huygens probe at Saturn´s moon Titan in early 2005, there is considerable interest in a follow-on mission that would use a substantially autonomous aerobot to explore Titan´s surface. In this paper, we discuss first steps towards the development of an autonomy architecture and a core set of perception, reasoning and control technologies for a future Titan aerobot. We provide an overview of the autonomy architecture, which integrates perception-based flight planning and control, vehicle health monitoring and safing, long-range mission planning and monitoring, and vision-based science site surveying. We describe the JPL aerobot and the onboard avionics architecture testbeds, and conclude with results from initial teleoperated test flights.