The Development of a European Micro-Robot for Planetary Surface Exploration

As part of various research and development activities in the area of mobile planetary robots small vehicles with masses of 10 kg or less are currently receiving high attention. In the frame of future solar system exploratory missions the European Space Agency (ESA) has identified the need to extend the range of scientific measurement from the immediate vicinity of static landing stations to a wider radius of a few tens of meters. This paper highlights the on-going development of a small mobile robot within the framework of ESA's Technological Research and Development Program. The purpose of the vehicle is to deploy instruments or sensor heads, acting as an `extended-robotic arm' rather than covering large distances on various types of terrain, while maximizing the mass allocation for scientific equipment. Applications of the vehicle could be the projected European mission to Mars, called `Mars Express', to be launched in 2003, and future European missions to the Moon as well as potential international missions. The requirements call for a simple, robust device with a net vehicle mass of only 2 kg and with low power consumption. Assuming a model payload, several candidate concepts have been defined, followed by a trade-off and selection of two different configurations - one based on tracked and one based on wheeled locomotion. This paper describes the main requirements, the design and the main test results for the tracked vehicle called `NANOKHOD', while the wheeled vehicle is presented in a complementary paper.