OPERATIONS AND CONTROL OF THE MOBILE INSTRUMENT DEPLOYMENT DEVICE ON THE SURFACE OF MARS

On-surface mobility is considered as a major contribution to enhance t he scientific measurement capabilities of future solar-system explorat ion missions. The emphasis of this paper is on the design and operatio ns details of mini-revers for short-range mobility, based on principle s of wheeled and crawling locomotion. Challenging requirements concern the very low mass allocations, operations in only partly known enviro nments and significant signal-propagation delays, This paper will disc uss the system and control concepts of the vehicles in more detail, wi thin the framework provided by the INTERMARSNET mission, aimed at expl oring the Martian surface. Copyright (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.