Real-Time Localization of a Rover on a Small Planetary Body based on Radio Waves

Abstract

Investigation on small planetary bodies with diameter less than 1 km has been getting a lot more attention recently. Rovers are promising way for surface investigation of small planetary bodies. A radio-wave-based method of localization for such rovers has been proposed, which uses twoway range between the rover and a mother spacecraft. However, it assumed that the rover is stationary on the surface during the localization. In this research, the rover is supposed to move during the localization. Rovers on small planetary bodies move by hopping. It hops, repeatedly bounds on rough terrain, may rotate on the surface and become stationary at some time. This paper describes a method to localize the hopping rovers in real-time. In the proposed method, multiple motions for rovers are modeled at the time-update steps in the Kalman filter. Numerical simulations are summarized assuming a rover on a planetary body with the size of asteroid Itokawa, which suppose that the proposed method provides accuracy of meter-order localization.