IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2015 - 35

deﬁnitely continue to work as one of the most effective tools
for future planetary missions, such as the long-distance exploration of more challenging terrains, placing science instruments, and gathering samples for analysis and possible return
to Earth [3].
Light weight and low power consumption are two critical
requirements for planetary rovers. Planetary exploration missions are associated with high interplanetary transportation
costs, and the mass is always an important concern while
developing planetary rovers. Another challenge posed by the
planetary environment is the power supply since it is impractical to manually charge or replace the batteries. Without
enough power supply, all operations, such as driving or steering motors, placing instruments, gathering samples, taking
pictures, and communicating with the ground stations,
become impossible. The Kapvik microRover, which is named
after the Canadian wolverine, is a smart, reconﬁgurable allterrain multimission microRover prototype that was developed for low-cost planetary exploration or as a collaborative

Pan/Tilt

assistant to beneﬁt large rover missions. More details on the
Kapvik microRover project can be found on the MPB Communications Inc. Web site [4]. This article presents the development of the Kapvik robotic mast-an innovative lightweight, low-power-consumption onboard robotic arm.
Extensive efforts have been made toward developing pan
camera masts or onboard robotic arms [5]-[10]. The camera
mast was developed to assist rover navigation [5], whereas the
onboard robotic arms were designed for sample inspection,
instrument deployment, or sample acquisition [6]-[10]. The
Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs), Spirit and Opportunity,
were equipped with a pancam mast and a 5-degree-of-freedom (DOF) instrument deployment device. The mast was
mounted on the top of the MER to provide an elevated platform for several cameras [5]; the robotic arm was ﬁxed in the
front of the rover to accurately position the instruments
against the potential geological specimens that were selected
for scientiﬁc investigation [6], [7]. A lightweight sampling
arm was designed for a small rover prototype, Rocky 7, which

Navigation Camera

Elbow
Wrist
Shoulder
Scoop
Turret

Locking
Mechanism
Mobile
Platform
(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 1. Typical robotic mast conﬁgurations: (a) stowage, (b) the triangular navigation mast, (c) sample retrieval, and (d) sample transfer.

march 2015

*

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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35

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2015

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