Robotics Challenges for Planetary Exploration

This talk starts with the basic challenges for robotic solutions in planetary exploration: the problems posed by accommodation, by energy resources and by the operating environment. Maximising return from robotic missions, in terms of achievable range (for mobile systems) or gathered samples, provides further challenges. The speaker looks at some of the UK heritage in planetary robotics and at key activities currently being undertaken in the UK community, notably including contributions from outside of the mainstream space industries. He also looks at commonalities between space robotics challenges and those that are relevant to terrestrial situations entailing operations in hostile environments.