A control architecture for a Mars walking vehicle

A design framework for a Mars Rover, intended for missions where a high degree of autonomy is dictated, is presented. The framework provides a logical computing architecture for rover mobility and local navigation subsystem design by defining a set of functional modules and interfaces to facilitate software and hardware specification. The similarities and dissimilarities between the present approach and related architectures for autonomous navigation and robotic control are discussed. An approach is presented for specifying actions to be taken by the mobility and local navigation subsystems of the rover.