DocumentCode :
144031
Title :
Autonomous rover for polar science support and remote sensing
Author :
Ray, Laura ; Adolph, Alden ; Morlock, Allison ; Walker, Benjamin ; Albert, Mary ; Lever, James H. ; Dibb, Jack
fYear :
2014
fDate :
13-18 July 2014
Firstpage :
4101
Lastpage :
4104
Abstract :
This paper reports outcomes of recent field deployments of the solar-powered Cool Robot, which was developed as an autonomous platform for towing or carrying scientific instruments in Greenland and Antarctica. This simple 70-kg four-wheel drive, solar-electric vehicle executes autonomous surveys via GPS waypoint following, while towing or carrying payloads of over 40 kg. Cool Robot conducted over 175 km of autonomous surveys to study atmospheric chemistry at the snow-air interface in the vicinity of Summit camp. The robot also conducted local grid surveys of the Summit ice layer in order to evaluate the potential of using ground penetrating radar to estimate the density of melt channels in the ice layer. Our key objectives were to demonstrate the operational value of a rover to locate subsurface features and the use of autonomous rovers in collecting scientific data from long-duration surveys. The Cool Robot operated reliably at -30 C, and demonstrated good oversnow mobility and adequate GPS accuracy for waypoint-following on a 5-10 meter grid. The deployment results demonstrate that autonomous vehicles have great potential to improve the efficiency of polar science.
Keywords :
geophysical equipment; geophysical techniques; ground penetrating radar; mobile robots; remote sensing by radar; Antarctica; GPS waypoint; Greenland; Summit camp vicinity; atmospheric chemistry; autonomous platform; autonomous rover; four-wheel drive; ground penetrating radar; melt channel density; polar science support; remote sensing; scientific data; scientific instruments; snow-air interface; solar-electric vehicle; solar-powered Cool Robot; Global Positioning System; Ground penetrating radar; Instruments; Payloads; Reliability; Robots; Remote sensing; autonomous polar robots;
fLanguage :
English
Publisher :
ieee
Conference_Titel :
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2014 IEEE International
Conference_Location :
Quebec City, QC
Type :
conf
DOI :
10.1109/IGARSS.2014.6947388
Filename :
6947388
Link To Document :
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