Planetary Rover Localization Design: Antecedents and Directions

The design of a planetary rover is a complex and concurrent engineering process which involves several iterations and phases presenting many challenges during the whole process . The design is driven by mission requirements and environmental constraints that affect the final rover concept. The localization subsystem is one of the key process that affects rover mobility. The needs of a localization subsystem onboard a planetary rover has several similarities with the ones on terrestrial vehicles as well as conventional spacecrafts. However, they have significant differences in terms of operational constraints and dynamics. In this talk the localization subsystem in planetary rovers is further discussed, presenting the state of the art, previous mistakes and future direction in its design. This speech will present my motivation to pursuit a research in this field and imminent coming steps towards better localization subsystems.