US 2026/0062151 A1Published application

System and method for integrated self-repair in an autonomous planetary rover

OwnerRichard Joseph Mitchellinventor

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Abstract

A system and method for autonomous self-repair of a planetary rover. The system comprises a health monitoring module, a multi-modal sensor suite, a robotic manipulator, a spare component storage bay, and an intelligent decision-making module. In response to receiving a fault signature, the decision-making module autonomously executes an end-to-end self-repair protocol. The protocol comprises: ceasing a primary mission; evaluating a current location of the rover against a predefined stability threshold; and, only if the current location is determined to be unstable, analyzing terrain data from the sensor suite to identify a previously un-mapped, ad-hoc stable location. The rover navigates to the stable location and, after confirming arrival, commands the manipulator to physically replace a failed hardware component with a spare. This integrated, fault-contingent protocol provides a new paradigm of autonomous self-preservation.

Claims12

Dependent claims

A self-repairing autonomous planetary rover system for operation in an unstructured extraterrestrial environment, comprising:

a. a chassis configured for traversing an unstructured extraterrestrial surface;
b. a multi-modal sensor suite disposed on the chassis and configured to generate terrain data corresponding to the unstructured extraterrestrial surface;
c. a health monitoring module configured to monitor a health status of a first hardware component of the system and, upon detecting a fault, to generate a fault signature;
d. a robotic manipulator coupled to the chassis;
e. a storage bay coupled to the chassis and configured to house a spare hardware component;
and
f. an intelligent decision-making module communicatively coupled to the health monitoring module, the sensor suite, and the robotic manipulator, the decision-making module configured to:
i. receive said fault signature;
and
ii. only in response to receiving said fault signature, autonomously execute an end-to-end self-repair protocol within the single rover system, the protocol comprising:
(a) ceasing a primary mission objective of the rover;
(b) evaluating a current location of the rover against a predefined stability threshold, wherein said stability threshold defines a location as unstable for said physical replacement;
(c) in response to a determination that said current location is unstable, analyzing said terrain data from the multi-modal sensor suite to autonomously identify a previously un-mapped, ad-hoc stable location on the unstructured extraterrestrial surface having a surface slope below said predetermined threshold;
(d) commanding the rover to navigate to said identified ad-hoc stable location;
and
(e) only after receiving a confirmation of arrival at said identified ad-hoc stable location, commanding the robotic manipulator to physically replace the first hardware component with the spare hardware component retrieved from the storage bay.

13 more elements

A method for providing autonomous self-repair of a planetary rover operating in an inaccessible, unstructured environment, the method comprising:

a. continuously monitoring, via a health monitoring module on the rover, a health status of a first hardware component of the rover;
b. upon detecting a fault in the first hardware component, generating, via the health monitoring module, a fault signature;
c. receiving, at an intelligent decision-making module on the rover, the fault signature;
and
d. only in response to receiving the fault signature, autonomously executing, via the intelligent decision-making module within the single rover, an end-to-end self-repair protocol, the protocol comprising:
i. ceasing a primary mission objective of the rover;
ii. evaluating a current location of the rover against a predefined stability threshold, wherein said stability threshold defines a location as unstable for a physical repair;
iii. in response to a determination that said current location is unstable for said physical repair, autonomously identifying, via the intelligent decision-making module, a previously un-mapped, ad-hoc stable location on the unstructured extraterrestrial surface by analyzing terrain data from a sensor suite, said ad-hoc stable location having a surface slope below said predetermined threshold;
iv. navigating the rover to said identified ad-hoc stable location;
and
v. only after confirming arrival at said identified ad-hoc stable location, commanding a robotic manipulator on the rover to physically replace the first hardware component with a spare hardware component.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.