Affiliations: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of
Technology, CA, USA
Note: [] Corresponding author: Richard Madison, M/S 125-109, 4800 Oak
Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA. Tel.: +1 818 354 1897; Fax: +1 818
393 0879; E-mail: armadison@earthlink.net
Abstract: Autonomous rover navigation is a critical technology for robotic
exploration of Mars. Simulation allows more extensive testing of such
technologies than would be possible with hardware test beds alone. A large
number of simulations, running in parallel, can test an algorithm under many
different operating conditions to quickly identify the operational envelope of
the technology and identify failure modes that were not discovered in more
limited testing. GESTALT is the autonomous navigation algorithm developed for
NASA's Mars rovers. ROAMS is a rover simulator developed to support the Mars
program. We have integrated GESTALT into ROAMS to test closed-loop, autonomous
navigation in simulation. We have developed a prototype capability to run many
copies of ROAMS in parallel on a supercomputer, varying input parameters to
rapidly explore GESTALT's performance across a parameter space. Using these
tools, we have demonstrated that large scale simulation can identify
performance limits and unexpected behaviors in an algorithm. Such parallel
simulation was able to test approximately 500 parameter combinations in the
time required for a single test on a hardware test bed.
Keywords: Simulation, autonomous navigation, mars rover
