Since caverns provide crucial information about geology and climate, this past weekend, we wanted to demonstrate four heterogeneous robots coordinating to generate a model of the Robot City test site, as the robots would perform in a lunar cavern.

After two weekends of hard work, we successfully cleared the thick vegetation and debris from an abandoned warehouse area to create a demonstration site. Following this, Cave Crawler, one of the four heterogeneous robots, autonomously navigated down the dark, rocky interior. Two rotating lasers collected 360 degree depth data while two fisheye lens cameras took still images, both of which will eventually be used to construct a detailed 3D model of the cave. The detailed maps returned by the robot will be crucial in allowing other robots in the team to conduct scientific experiments on objects of interest.