THE PROPOSED PROGRAM INNOVATES NOVEL SENSING PERCEPTUAL MODELS AND ENERGY-EFFICIENT EXPLORATION STRATEGIES TO ENABLE MOBILE AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS TO EXPLORE ICY MOONS AND IDENTIFY HIGH VALUE SCIENCE TARGETS. BEYOND TOPICAL RESEARCH THE PROGRAM WILL INTEGRATE THE CAPABILITIES ON PHYSICAL ROBOTS AND DEMONSTRATE RESULTS IN ICY ANALOG FIELD ENVIRONMENTS. BESIDES ICY MOONS THE RESEARCH ENABLES EXPLORATION OF PERMADARK CRATERS AND POLAR REGIONS WHERE DARKNESS IS JUXTAPOSED WITH GRAZING LIGHT AND TOPOGRAPHIC RELIEF. TERRESTRIAL APPLICATIONS INCLUDE ROBOTIC MODELING OF INFRASTRUCTURE LIKE BRIDGES AND ROBOTIC AVALANCHE RESCUE IN SNOW AND ICE. THE FIRST RESEARCH THRUST DEVELOPS ROBUST SENSING IN ICY MOON ENVIRONMENTS. THE OBJECTIVES OF THIS RESEARCH THRUST ARE TO (1) CREATE AN ACTIVE ILLUMINATION SENSOR THAT IS ROBUST TO AMBIENT ILLUMINATION AND STRAY SCATTERED LIGHT TRAVELING ALONG INDIRECT PATHS AND (2) DEVELOP STRATEGIES TO ADAPT THE ILLUMINATION IMAGING AND DEPTH RECOVERY ALGORITHM USED BY THE SENSOR ON THE BASIS OF TERRAIN TYPE REQUIRED ACCURACY AND POINT CLOUD DENSITY POWER BUDGETS AND AVAILABLE ACQUISITION TIME. WE WILL ACHIEVE THESE OBJECTIVES USING A NOVEL ACTIVE ILLUMINATION SENSOR THAT CAN SELECTIVELY IMAGE CERTAIN TYPES OF LIGHT PATHS WHILE BLOCKING OTHERS WITH THE CAPABILITY TO SCAN OPTICALLY CHALLENGING MATERIALS SUCH AS ICE. THE PROPOSED SPECIALIZED SENSOR DEVELOPED THROUGH THIS RESEARCH WILL RUN A VARIETY OF DEPTH RECOVERY ALGORITHMS INCLUDING PASSIVE STEREO ACTIVE SPACE-TIME STEREO AND STRUCTURED LIGHT WITH THE FLEXIBILITY TO ADAPT TO EMERGENT POWER TIME AND ACCURACY TRADEOFFS. THE SECOND THRUST DEVELOPS DENSE PERCEPTION AND MODELING OF ICY SURFACES. THE TWO OBJECTIVES OF THIS RESEARCH THRUST ARE TO: (1) CHARACTERIZE THE PROBABILISTIC MODEL OF THE ACTIVE ILLUMINATION SENSOR IN REPRESENTATIVE ICY MOON ENVIRONMENTS CONTAINING ICE ROCK AND CLAY-LIKE MINERALS AND (2) DEVELOP DENSE MAPPING METHODOLOGIES THAT ACHIEVE THE LEVEL OF REAL-TIME PERFORMANCE AND FIDELITY REQUIRED BY AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS TO SAFELY EXPLORE ICY CRAGGY ENVIRONMENTS AND ENABLE DETECTION OF HIGH VALUE SCIENCE TARGETS. TO ACHIEVE THESE OBJECTIVES WE WILL DEVELOP A PROBABILISTIC SENSOR MODEL THAT WILL ACCURATELY DETERMINE THE DEPTH OF THE SENSOR MEASUREMENTS AND INNOVATE A PERCEPTUAL MODEL BASED ON SURFELS THAT WILL STORE INTENSITY DEPTH AND MATERIAL INFORMATION IN AN EFFICIENT DATA STRUCTURE. THE THIRD THRUST DEVELOPS EXPLORATION IN CRAGGY ENERGY-CONSTRAINED ENVIRONMENTS. THE RESEARCH OBJECTIVES OF THIS THRUST ARE TO: (1) DEVELOP EXPLORATION STRATEGIES THAT ARE COGNIZANT OF PERCEPTUAL AND MOBILITY MODELS ALLOWING INCORPORATION OF SENSOR PERFORMANCE MOBILITY CONSTRAINTS AND ENERGY CONSUMPTION TOWARD MAXIMALLY INFORMATIVE ENERGY-EFFICIENT EXPLORATION AND (2) DEVELOP REAL-TIME STRATEGIES TO ENABLE AUTONOMOUS NAVIGATION AND EXPLORATION IN CRAGGY ICY ENVIRONMENTS VIA HIGH-RESOLUTION ENVIRONMENT MODELS DEVELOPED BY THE PROPOSED SENSING AND PERCEPTION METHODS. TO ACHIEVE THESE OBJECTIVES WE WILL INNOVATE AN ENERGY-EFFICIENT MOTION PLANNING AND CONTROL FRAMEWORK BASED ON MOTION PRIMITIVES THAT MAXIMIZE THE INFORMATION GAIN PER UNIT ENERGY THE TRAJECTORIES WILL GENERALIZE ACROSS MULTIPLE MOBILITY PLATFORMS. TO ENABLE REAL-TIME EXPLORATION VIA HIGH-RESOLUTION ENVIRONMENT MODELS WE WILL INNOVATE APPROXIMATE EXPLORATION OBJECTIVES THAT ARE AMENABLE TO PARALLELIZATION WHILE ENSURING ENVIRONMENT COVERAGE. INTEGRATIVE EXPERIMENTS WILL VALIDATE THE DEVELOPMENTS AT SITES IN PENNSYLVANIA THAT EXHIBIT SIMILAR CHARACTERISTICS AS THE ANTICIPATED CRAGGY ICY ENVIRONMENTS. EACH FIELD EXPERIMENT WILL EMPHASIZE IN-SITU EVALUATION AND VALIDATION OF THE PROPOSED APPROACH