Lunar Rover Cargo Transport: Mission Concept and Field Test

TL;DR

This study presents a mission concept for lunar cargo transport using lidar Teach and Repeat (LT&R) on the Lunar Exploration Light Rover (LELR) and reports a two-week analogue-terrain field test. The LT&R framework enables repeatable autonomous navigation along a learned path between lander and habitat, achieving cargo docking precision on the order of tens of centimeters and maintaining path-tracking RMSE around a quarter-meter. Semi-autonomous teleoperations supplemented by driven teach steps demonstrated the feasibility of rapid autonomous repeats, reducing operation time to roughly 8.6% of semi-autonomous durations. The results highlight the viability of LT&R for lunar logistics while also identifying drivers for improvement, including automatic alignment, cargo-dynamics handling under lunar gravity, and route-change monitoring to sustain path validity in evolving terrain.

Abstract

In future operations on the lunar surface, automated vehicles will be required to transport cargo between known locations. Such vehicles must be able to navigate precisely in safe regions to avoid natural hazards, human-constructed infrastructure, and dangerous dark shadows. Rovers must be able to park their cargo autonomously within a small tolerance to achieve a successful pickup and delivery. In this field test, Lidar Teach and Repeat provides an ideal autonomy solution for transporting cargo in this way. A one-tonne path-to-flight rover was driven in a semi-autonomous remote-control mode to create a network of safe paths. Once the route was taught, the rover immediately repeated the entire network of paths autonomously while carrying cargo. The closed-loop performance is accurate enough to align the vehicle to the cargo and pick it up. This field report describes a two-week deployment at the Canadian Space Agency's Analogue Terrain, culminating in a simulated lunar operation to evaluate the system's capabilities. Successful cargo collection and delivery were demonstrated in harsh environmental conditions.

Figures (13)

• Figure 1: The Lunar Exploration Light Rover carrying cargo as it drives away from the lander on the right. The cargo transport mission is carried out under simulated lunar south pole lighting conditions and the ground is illuminated by the vehicle's headlights and the "sun gun." Two Ouster lidars are used for mapping and hazard detection. (Image Credit: CSA)
• Figure 2: The key locations for the simulated lunar mission. The lander and habitat require precise relative alignment. The other locations are approximate and will be selected based on an operator's assessment of navigability. (Image Credit: CSA)
• Figure 3: A side and top view showing the locations of the three lidar sensors and eight cameras. The lidar fields of view are denoted by the swept area filled with each sensor's colour. Note that the cargo (light blue) reduces the navigation lidar's (orange) field of view as the vehicle carries it. The direction of each camera is marked with a dashed triangle.
• Figure 4: A composite view of all eight cameras mounted to LELR. The border colours correspond to the camera's colour in \ref{['fig:sensor_positions']}.
• Figure 5: A three-frame sequence of a latch release. When the latch is fully engaged, as in the first pane, the cargo is secure and it is safe to drive the rover. When the latch is clear, loading and unloading operations can occur. (Image Credit: CSA)