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A future lunar base will have a ton of jobs for robotics to complete – I decided to narrow the scope of my project down to transporting supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To resupply a lunar base, you\u2019ll need to send a lander. The types of supplies will probably include food, water, oxygen, equipment, tools, new habitat modules, scientific instruments, the list goes on and on. It could be simpler to have an astronaut move the cargo, however, space suits have terrible mobility. An astronaut can\u2019t even pick up a tool if they drop it, and some of the supplies will be too heavy to realistically move without some form of assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In short, robotics are going to be a key technology for ensuring a crewed lunar base runs smoothly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n My rover uses ROS2 (robot operating system 2) for it\u2019s control, communications, and navigation. ROS is a super versatile robotics library and it\u2019s used in a ton of industry applications. So far, I\u2019ve used ROS2, RViz (robot visualization software) and Gazebo (A physics simulation built for ROS) to simulate my rover in lunar terrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The key things I learnt through this simulation were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n