An Advanced Hexacopter for Mars Exploration: Attitude Control and Autonomous Navigation

Mars exploration has recently witnessed major interest within the scientific community, particularly because unmanned aerial robotic platforms offer reliable alternatives for acquiring and collecting data and information from the Red Planet. However, the specific conditions of the Martian environment result in a restricted flight envelope when flying close to Mars and then landing on the surface of Mars. Therefore, in addition to the requirement to develop an aerial platform suitable for operations on Mars, autonomous navigation strategies and robust controllers are also needed for exploration tasks. It is argued that hexacopters with their relatively compact design represent a promising solution for autonomous exploration tasks on Mars, overcoming at the same time the limitations of wheel-based rovers. This research focuses on the design of a Mars hexacopter for a scouting mission in the Jezero region of Mars. The configuration and architecture of the hexacopter follow NASA conceptual study of the Mars science helicopter. Then, the mission profile for mapping the Belva crater is examined, followed by a detailed approach to implement and test observer-based navigation and control strategies. A comprehensive simulated experiments environment based on the integration of robot operating system and Ardupilot is also presented, used to validate the overall system architecture and mission parameters considering both the morphological shape of the explored crater and the atmospheric conditions of Mars.