Fuzzy terrain-based path planning for planetary rovers

Presents a fuzzy terrain-based path planning method for planetary rovers operating on rough natural terrain. The focus of this approach is on planning an optimally safe path of minimum traversal cost, which is calculated from linguistic descriptors of terrain traversability. The method incorporates the traversability map, a fuzzy map representation of traversal difficulty of the terrain, into the path planning logic. The search methodology uses a traversal cost function that is derived directly from this traversability map. The path planning method is developed in detail and experimental results are presented