Master: Dev:

CU Senior Projects — JPL Team

M.A.R.S.

The Martian Autonomous Routing System (M.A.R.S.) is a command-line utility that produces lists of coordinates describing possible routes for a rover to take from a start to a goal coordinate, navigating a provided elevation map with various algorithms, within the bounds of its physical capabilities. Research was conducted to assess how useful the various algorithms are in guiding a rover. Our paper is stored in docs/MARS Research Paper.pdf.

Members:

• Ross Blassingame
• Robert Ballard
• Shawn Polson
• Josh Jenkins
• Chandler Samuels
• Dean Moser

Sponsor

This project is sponsored by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with Marcel Llopis providing advice and oversight for the work.

Usage

The first step after cloning this repo is to download all the maps used in M.A.R.S. to your machine: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xHH8RP3YiBOSrKbFDmddHxtVKfZrIqUE?usp=sharing

Next, place those maps inside of src/main/resources.

Input

To use the program, you must provide it:

• a compatible elevation map (see below)
• specifications for a theoretical rover, including a maximum slope it can safely traverse, as well as field of view for using the limited route algorithm
• a start coordinate (in pixels or latitude/longitude) corresponding to a location on the input map
• an end coordinate (in pixels or latitude/longitude) also corresponding to the map
• a specified algorithm type to run (see below)
• a specified algorithm to run (see below)
• a specified coordinate output type (see below)
• a specified output type (see below)

Compatible elevation map formats include:

Format	Accepted Extension(s)
GeoTIFF	.tiff, .tif

Available maps include (but are not limited to):

Map Names	Prompt Key
Europa	(1)
Mars (global)	(2)
Mars (Aeolus region	(3)
Phobos (global)	(4)
Phobos (Viking mosaic)	(5)

Available algorithm types include:

Algorithm Type	Prompt Key	Description
Unlimited scope	U	Navigates from start to goal with perfect information with regards to the elevation map.
Limited scope	L	Navigates from start to goal with information gathered as it traverses the elevation map.

Available algorithms include:

Unlimited Algorithms	Prompt Key
Greedy	(1)
IDA*	(2)
Best First	(3)
Breadth First Search	(4)
A* (Non-Recursive)	(5)
A* (Recursive)	(6)
Dijkstra	(7)

Limited Algorithms	Prompt Key
Greedy	(1)
IDA*	(2)
Best First	(3)
Breadth First Search	(4)
A*	(5)
Dijkstra	(6)

Available output coordinate types include:

Coordinate Type	Prompt Key	Description
Pixel	P	Outputs the rover's path from start to goal coordinate in pixels.
Lat/Long	L	Outputs the rover's path from start to goal coordinate in latitude and longitude.

Available output options include:

Output Type	Prompt Key	Description
File Output	(1)	Outputs the rover's path from start to goal coordinate in an external CSV file.
Map Image Output	(2)	Outputs the rover's path from start to goal coordinate by coloring the path on the GeoTIFF.
Terminal Output	(3)	Outputs the rover's path from start to goal coordinate in the terminal.

This information can be given to the software by simply running it and following the prompts, or by running it with command-line arguments. Start and end coordinates can be chosen by clicking in the optional GUI.

Execution

Once the program completes, the resultant path the chosen algorithm determined will be output to the terminal in a human-readable format. It can be run again to check against another algorithm or saved to a CSV.