Orbital imagery of the moon has identified several deep pits in the lunar surface, and there is great interest in exploring these pits to determine if they could provide access to subsurface caves where future human habitats could be constructed. A team at CMU proposes to explore one such pit by means of a small, autonomous rover that would circumnavigate the rim of the pit and capture images of the interior walls. Such a mission would require specialized planning and navigation code to keep the rover safe in the treacherous terrain near the pit and manage the process of feeding data back to Earth via a radio-equipped lander module.

This project is concerned with designing the software functions necessary for the rover to operate in the pit vicinity, including brinkmanship navigation, path planning, and risk assessment. The scope of the project also includes the development of a rover surrogate and a simulated lunar environment, both used to enable testing of the software that is the focus of the project. This website details progress on the project from its inception to the date of the first demonstration of the major subsystems and discusses future work planned for the coming year.