Navigation control for an exploration rover with microwave Doppler sensors (Fabrication of third prototype rover and experiments)

Abstract

Microwave Doppler sensors commonly used in automatic-door systems have been used in a rover navigation system. A collimated microwave beam with an angular width of ±3° at a frequency of 24 GHz was emitted from a sensor (A) on a dish antenna 30 cm in diameter. Another sensor (B), which works as a detector, was installed on the rover. The rover was programmed to make a right turn when the microwave signal was above a specified level and to make a left turn when the signal was than that level. In this study, we fabricated the third prototype rover. To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method, we performed the experiments on the strength distribution of the microwave beam, and on the navigation control with the fabricated rover..