UC Santa Cruz

All past NASA planetary rovers have only been able to traverse celestial surfaces at a maximum speed of 0.05-0.09 m/s (0.11-0.20 mph). There is motivation to operate rovers more autonomously and to increase their speeds upwards to 3m/s on flat hard ground, which is considered fast for planetary rovers. In this thesis, a novel roughness metric is used to create a speed map and provide planetary rovers with information about the terrain. The provided information is intrinsic to the terrain regarding its roughness and speed allowing the rover to safely travel over smooth and rough terrain. The results of this method will benefit path planning algorithms and control operators in improving mission efficiency.