Autonomous exploration of cliff faces using multiple information metrics

Recent evidence that water flowed down the faces of some Martian cliffs has created an interest in the scientific community to explore these cliffs more thoroughly, perhaps using robots. This paper presents a technique for autonomous exploration that considers multiple forms of information while exploring. The method is applied to the problem of autonomously exploring cliffs. The exploring robot seeks out unknown terrain and identifies any cliffs in the environment. When a cliff is found, the robot finds a way to the bottom to view the face of the cliff where signs of water runoff may be present. Results from experiments both in simulation and in the field are presented.