Path selection system simulation and evaluation for a Martian roving vehicle

A comprehensive digital computer simulation program has been developed for evaluating the path-selection system performance of an autonomous roving vehicle being designed for the exploration of Mars. Vehicle performance over realistic three-dimensional terrains in the presence of random motion disturbances and sensor measurement noise is simulated and plotted on a terrain contour map. In addition, a numerical figure-of-merit is computed automatically for each run.