My PhD research with the STARS Laboratory at the University of Toronto consists in exploring ways to enable planetary rovers to drive autonomously on very long distances while having an awareness of the impact of navigation on their resources (such as energy levels). Long-term autonomy in planetary environments (such as the surface of the Moon or Mars) will be necessary in the future as the interest of sending more rovers with more ambitious driving requirements to those destinations just keeps increasing.

This work is performed in collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. I am very fortunate to have spent most of my time there last year under the (co-)supervision of Dr. Masahiro Ono, with whom I will continue to collaborate in the following months.