Research on and education for navigation control of an exploration rover with microwave Doppler sensors

Microwave Doppler sensors commonly used in automatic-door systems have been used in a rover navigation system. A collimated microwave beam with an angular width of ±3° at a frequency of 24 GHz was emitted from a sensor (A) on a dish antenna 30 cm in diameter. Another sensor (B), which works as a detector, was installed on the rover. The rover was programmed to make a right turn when the microwave signal was above a specified level and to make a left turn when the signal was below that level. In this study, we fabricated the third prototype rover. To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method, we performed the experiments on the strength distribution of the microwave beam and on the navigation control with the fabricated rover. Finally, we had a questionnaire for the student who collaborated with this study to investigate how the education effects for the student were.