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Abstract
The focus of this research is to develop a vision-guided autonomous system for structure or habitat construction on distant planets/moons in support of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). The proposed approach would use building blocks produced via additive manufacturing from the in-situ environment and assembled using similar methodologies as used on Earth; the block creation and design are not the focus of this research. This is an alternative approach to current concepts being evaluated by NASA. A system prototype was created by mounting a robot arm with block manipulation capability atop a vector-drive robotic platform that enables the system to strafe omnidirectionally over the terrain. A vision system provides flexible peripheral input for object localization within the environment. The system carries blocks to the build location, then uses the vision system and auxiliary sensors to provide guided input for the automated piece-by-piece assembly. A prototype of a vision-guided robot for planetary habitat assembly successfully demonstrated autonomous erection of an emulated structure.