MIT Robotics Seminar | Hiro Ono (Georgia Tech)

Abstract: After 60 years since the dawn of planetary exploration, with a number of glorious discoveries, we are exhausting easily accessible destinations. Future robotic missions are characterized by challenging, unknown environments (e.g., subsurface oceans of the icy moons of Jupiter/Saturn) and/or highly ambitious mission goals (e.g., >1,000 km autonomous driving on the Moon). A key enabler for such missions is robust, highly adaptive autonomous mobility.

In this talk, I will discuss the development of autonomous robotic mobility across a spectrum of planetary exploration problems. I will first describe the Enhanced AutoNav (ENav) algorithm that has been successfully driving NASA's Perseverance Mars rover since 2021. I will then discuss the limitations of ENav, and introduce existing research efforts to remove the limitations mainly through the applications of machine learning, as well as ongoing efforts to incorporate foundational AI into future space systems.

However, of course, Mars is not the end goal of humanity's endeavor to space. Rather, it is just a beginning. In the second part of the talk, I will introduce EELS—the Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor—a highly articulated snake-like robot developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to enable the exploration of the subsurface ocean of Enceladus, a small icy moon of Saturn, which may host alien life. EELS is designed to autonomously traverse complex, poorly characterized terrain, including ice, steep slopes, and confined subsurface passages. Finally, I will discuss the ongoing efforts to further robustify icy world locomotion through whole-body tactile sensing.

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Dr. Masahiro (Hiro) Ono is an Associate Professor at the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech and Director of the Planetary Robotics Lab (PRL). Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he spent 13 years at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he developed autonomous navigation algorithms for the Perseverance Mars rover, led the development of EELS (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor)—a snake-like robot designed to explore the potentially habitable subsurface ocean of Enceladus—and led multiple research initiatives in AI and robotics. He also served as Supervisor of JPL's Robotic Surface Mobility Group and as a rover operator for Perseverance. Before JPL, he was on the faculty at Keio University in Japan. Dr. Ono is also the author of three books for young readers, and a father of a rebellious princess and a mischievous munchkin. Go Hanshin Tigers.

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