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I want to explain the autonomy in this robot because it is amazing. First, they use LIDAR (laser radar) and an AI algorithm detects rocks in the signal. You can see the robot carefully driving around the rocks as it sees them. Second,...
2/...it uses an inertial measuring unit to detect if the robot has tilted by driving a wheel into a crater. When that happens it slows the drive speed way down to carefully climb out of the crater without slipping or getting stuck, then it speeds up again. Third,...
3/...it combines three sets of sensory inputs in a Kalman filter (a computer process), exactly the same as the Space Shuttle combined its Nav data, to figure out where it is (localization) and then decide where it needs to go (path planning). Fourth,...
4/...while digging it monitors resistance in the motors to detect if a rock has jammed the mechanism, then it reverses the digging back and forth to unjam the rock, and then it continues digging. It does everything with no operator input, navigating back and forth to mine & dump.
5/5 This level of autonomy is amazing. When the autonomy prize was added to the competition it took several years before any team could win that prize. There’s been tremendous progress since then!
