Ashutosh Mishra

Projects

Plug and Play Modular Sensor Box

A modular sensor package for the MoonBot platform, fusing LiDAR, fisheye and depth cameras. Field tested by mapping a cave.

Dates
September 2025 to October 2025
Field site
Abukuma Cave, Japan
Stack
Livox Mid-360 LiDAR, Intel RealSense D435i, Sensor fusion, SLAM, ROS 2
The sensor box mounted on a MoonBot on the lab sand bed, Space Robotics Lab, Tohoku University.
The sensor box mounted on a MoonBot on the lab sand bed, Space Robotics Lab, Tohoku University.

A plug-and-play sensor box for the MoonBot platform, fusing a Livox Mid-360 LiDAR, two fisheye cameras and an Intel RealSense D435i. Because the platform is modular, the sensing had to be modular too: any configuration should be able to take the box and get a usable picture of its surroundings.

It was field tested by mapping Abukuma Cave, used here as a stand-in for lunar cave environments. Caves are a plausible location for lunar habitation and a genuinely hard sensing problem: no GNSS, no ambient light, and geometry that defeats assumptions built on open terrain.

The sensor box carried by hand through Abukuma Cave.
The sensor box carried by hand through Abukuma Cave.
LiDAR point cloud of a chamber in Abukuma Cave. The scale bar reads 9.5 m.
LiDAR point cloud of a chamber in Abukuma Cave. The scale bar reads 9.5 m.
Inside the box: Livox Mid-360 LiDAR, LattePanda Sigma compute, a fisheye stereo pair and a RealSense D435i.
Inside the box: Livox Mid-360 LiDAR, LattePanda Sigma compute, a fisheye stereo pair and a RealSense D435i.

MoonBot in depth, with video

Research direction