PARAMETRIC PERFORMANCE CHARACTERIZATION OF VISUAL ODOMETRY FOR THE SAMPLE FETCH ROVER

ESA is working with NASA to plan and carry out an international Mars Samples Return (MSR) campaign between 2026 and 2030. A relevant part of the upcoming MSR mission is the Sample Fetch Rover (SFR), tasked to collect sample tubes of Martian soil prepared by Mars2020 rover Perseverance. This work will focus on SFR and its localization capabilities. Visual Odometry (VO), a vision-based localization algorithm, is often the main component of the localization process in planetary robotics. VO is the process of estimating the motion of a robot, usually represented as a 6-DOF pose, using subsequent pairs of stereo images as inputs. The goal of this study is to investigate the possibility of transferring the ExoMars VO solution to a valid SFR implementation, compliant with mission requirements. First, the main differences between the two missions, SFR and ExoMars have been studied, in order to identify the most critical parameters for the VO process. Then, using a testing rover available in the Planetary Robotics Lab (PRL) at European Space Technology and research Centre (ES-TEC), the effect of the previously identified parameters on the VO performances was evaluated, identifying the most crucial ones and proposing some solutions to face them. This work could lead the way to future studies about the localization for the Sample Fetch Rover and what are the main and most critical factors that would have to be taken into account in order to achieve an accurate and reliable localization system.