Rover technology for manned Mars missions
A set of roving vehicle design requirements were postulated, corresponding to an idealized Mars transport vehicle operational scenario which could serve as a reference for a manned Mars mission. The ability of conventional vehicles to satisfy these requirements were examined. The study indicated that no conventional vehicle could satisfy all of the requirements, as the vehicles are presently configured. Consequently, the requirements have to either be relaxed and/or an alternative, less conventional vehicle design will have to be developed. A possible unconventional vehicle design which has received considerable attention for DARPA and the Army is the walker vehicle. The design issues associated with this vehicle are presented, along with a comparison of the performance capabilities of this technology vs. conventional vehicle technology.
The problem of localising the source of a scalar signal has attracted more and more attention. This paper attempts to present a literature review on research results in seeking the source using wheeled mobile robots. First of all, this paper reviews the development history of source seeking. Then we enumerate the existing sourcing seeking control methods. Finally, the research status and future research directions of source seeking are be summarized.