Back to Reality

ASRL Field Team [photo: Pomerleau]

Our Sudbury 2016 field campaign has come to a close and we're back in civilization.  All of our experiments were quite successful.  The Grizzly drove over 120 km using vision-only feedback, the Lancaster planes did many surveys of the site, and TReX explored two unique rock outcrops with several descents at each one.  After cleaning up all the gear, our next step is to process the 6 Tb of data we collected, post pictures, make videos, etc.  Can't wait for the next field experience!

On the Rock

We're having a great field campaign in Sudbury.  TReX, our tethered climbing robot, has completed several descents down steep terrain in order to build three-dimensional models using lidar.  The robot has performed quite well, and we've become more confident in the strength of the tether over time.  The ability to drive sideways while under tension has proven an important capability to get around obstructions such as rock bulges.  Overall, we're happy with the TReX concept and hope to make a smaller, lighter machine in the future to simplify logistics.

Sudbury Field Camp

We're back in the Ethier gravel pit in Sudbury.  We've had our camp running for 5 days now and have gotten into a good routine.  The Grizzly has passed 75 km of autonomous driving using VT&R2, TReX has explored two different rock outcrops, and our fixed-wing UAV has done an aerial survey of the pit and our camp.  The weather has taken a turn for the better so it's looking great for the next few days.

Trains are Robots, Too

Congrats to Tyler, whose paper on lidar-based train localization won best robotics paper at the conference on Computer and Robot Vision (CRV) in Vancouver this year!