THERMALLY INFORMED MOTION PLANNING TO ENHANCE MISSION ENDURANCE OF MOBILE ROBOTS

Mission endurance is a critical factor for mobile robots deployed for space exploration purposes and other challenging missions in remote locations. The mission endurance is highly correlated with thermoregulation, and exposure to solar radiation which affects both the robot integrity and its access to power. There is an increased interest in developing temperature aware motion planning strategies due to efforts from governments and private companies to expand exploration of the moon and other celestial bodies. One key step to achieve thermally informed motion planning is the development of time varying thermal maps that can be used by both robots and human teammates that collaborate on the exploration missions. This paper develops an approach to produce thermal maps that are dependent on the incidence direction of solar rays and terrain surface geometry. The paper also discusses integration of the generated maps with motion planners that consider thermal information.