The interest in exploring planetary bodies for scientific investigation and in-situ resource utilization is ever-rising. Yet, many sites of interest are inaccessible to state-of-the-art planetary exploration robots because of the robots' inability to traverse steep slopes, unstructured terrain, and loose soil. Additionally, current single-robot approaches only allow a limited exploration speed and a single set of skills. Here, we present a team of legged robots with complementary skills for exploration missions in challenging planetary analog environments. We equipped the robots with an efficient locomotion controller, a mapping pipeline for online and post-mission visualization, instance segmentation to highlight scientific targets, and scientific instruments for remote and in-situ investigation. Furthermore, we integrated a robotic arm on one of the robots to enable high-precision measurements. Legged robots can swiftly navigate representative terrains, such as granular slopes beyond 25 degrees, loose soil, and unstructured terrain, highlighting their advantages compared to wheeled rover systems. We successfully verified the approach in analog deployments at the BeyondGravity ExoMars rover testbed, in a quarry in Switzerland, and at the Space Resources Challenge in Luxembourg. Our results show that a team of legged robots with advanced locomotion, perception, and measurement skills, as well as task-level autonomy, can conduct successful, effective missions in a short time. Our approach enables the scientific exploration of planetary target sites that are currently out of human and robotic reach.

翻译：行星体科学调查与原位资源利用探索的兴趣日益增长。然而，由于现有行星探测机器人无法穿越陡坡、非结构化地形和松散土壤，许多感兴趣的地点仍难以抵达。此外，当前的单机器人方法仅允许有限的探索速度和单一技能集。本文提出了一支具备互补技能的腿式机器人团队，用于在挑战性行星模拟环境中执行探索任务。我们为机器人配备了高效运动控制器、用于在线与任务后可视化的建图流程、突出科学目标物的实例分割模块，以及用于远程和原位调查的科学仪器。此外，我们在其中一台机器人上集成了机械臂，以实现高精度测量。腿式机器人能够快速穿越超过25度的颗粒斜坡、松散土壤和非结构化地形等代表性地形，突显了其相较于轮式巡视系统的优势。我们在ExoMars火星车测试场（BeyondGravity）、瑞士某采石场以及卢森堡空间资源挑战赛中成功验证了该方法。研究结果表明，具备先进运动、感知与测量技能及任务级自主性的腿式机器人团队，能够在短时间内开展成功且高效的任务。我们的方法实现了对当前人类及机器人难以触及的行星目标地点的科学探索。