Autonomous Navigation on Icy Moons and Ocean Worlds

Technology currently used for terrestrial navigation is extremely limited in the challenging environments on icy moons and ocean worlds such as Europa. Autonomous platforms used to collect data from beneath these ice and ocean surfaces cannot depend on access to satellite or any other electromagnetic communication. Autonomous systems in these environments are required to perform highly-complex tasks over long mission durations through which communication blackout can be expected, and therefore must have access to precise navigation and localization information. Sensor fusion of standard sensing technology such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, doppler velocity logs, and magnetometers must be augmented with more advanced navigation techniques such as novel acoustic approaches, visual navigation and advanced path planning to meet the requirements of these missions. Here we propose to develop such a navigation and path planning system to advance the autonomous capabilities of a robotic system deployed to remote icy moons and ocean planets using tools commonly used in terrestrial applications such as visual navigation, factor graphs, and deep learning. This technology will maximize the science return for future missions to these moons and planets, as well as advance the state-of-the-art technology available for earth science applications.

1. Navigation of Europa Sub-ice Probes and Other Sub-Ice Planetary Probes Implementation of the proposed technology on the Icefin vehicle to advance the work of this NASA-funded program 2. National Airspace Security Provide enhanced navigation capabilities in GPS-denied environments

1. Under-ice Navigation at the Poles and Commercial Sector UUVs Enhance capability for under-ice autonomous vehicles in support of the scientific, mapping, mining, and defense applications 2. Autonomous Car Navigation Improve robustness, especially during GNSS outages / interference

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