Abstract
Planetary exploration robots encounter challenging terrain during operation. Vision-based approaches have failed to reliably predict soil characteristics in the past, making it necessary to probe the terrain tactilely. We present a robust, haptic inspection approach for a variety of fine, granular media, which are representative of Martian soil. In our approach, the robot uses one limb to perform an impact trajectory, while supporting the main body with the remaining three legs. The resulting vibration, which is recorded by sensors placed in the foot, is decomposed using the discrete wavelet transform and assigned a soil class by a Support Vector Machine. We tested two foot designs and validated the robustness of this approach through the extensive use of an open-source dataset, which we recorded on a specially designed single-foot testbed. A remarkable overall classification accuracy of more than 98% could be achieved despite various introduced disturbances. The contributions of the different sensors to the classification performance are evaluated. Finally, we test the generalization performance on unknown soils and show that the interaction behavior can be anticipated. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000322720Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
IEEE Robotics and Automation LettersVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
IEEESubject
Force and Tactile Sensing; Inspection; Legged robots; Terramechanics; Space roboticsOrganisational unit
09570 - Hutter, Marco / Hutter, Marco
Funding
780883 - subTerranean Haptic INvestiGator (EC)
Related publications and datasets
Is supplemented by: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000370042
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