Optimizing Aerobot Exploration of Venus

Abstract

Venus Flyer Robot (VFR) is an aerobot; an autonomous balloon probe designed for remote exploration of Earth's sister planet in 2003. VFR's simple navigation and control system permits travel to virtually any location on Venus, but it can survive for only a limited duration in the harsh Venusian environment. To help address this limitation, we develop: (1) a global circulation model that captures the most important characteristics of the Venusian atmosphere; (2) a simple aerobot model that captures thermal restrictions faced by VFR at Venus; and (3) one exact and two heuristic algorithms that, using abstractions (1) and (2), construct routes making the best use of VFR's limited lifetime. We demonstrate this modeling by planning several small example missions and a prototypical mission that explores numerous interesting sites recently documented in the planetary geology literature.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1997
Accession Number
ADA331239

Entities

People

  • Kevin S. Ford

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Control Systems
  • Heat Energy
  • Heat Of Fusion
  • Heat Transfer
  • Jet Propulsion
  • Latent Heat
  • Motion Planning
  • Navigation
  • Operations Research
  • Phase Change Materials
  • Robots
  • Solar System
  • Three Dimensional
  • Unmanned Vehicles

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Robotics and Automation.
  • Spectroscopy.
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - Autonomous Systems
  • AI & ML - Bayesian Inference
  • AI & ML - Machine Learning Algorithms
  • Autonomy