ESA tests self-guiding rover

[Swift]

From R&D magazine on-line

The European Space Agency (ESA) assembled a top engineering team then challenged them to devise a way for rovers to navigate on alien planets. Six months later, a fully autonomous vehicle was charting its own course through Chile's Mars-like Atacama Desert.

The recent test of the Seeker full-scale rover was the outcome of gathering a multidisciplinary team at a single site, working against the clock to achieve a breakthrough.

"Their challenge was to demonstrate how a planetary rover—programmed with state-of-the-art software for autonomous navigation and making decisions—could traverse 6 km in a Mars-like environment and come back where it started," explained ESA's Gianfranco Visentin.

"ESA's ExoMars rover, due to land on Mars in 2018, will have state-of-the-art autonomy," added Gianfranco.

"However, it will not travel more than 150 m each martian day and not much more than 3 km throughout its mission.

"The difficulty comes with follow-on missions, which will require daily traverses of five to ten times longer.

"With longer journeys, the rover progressively loses sense of where it is.

So, don't expect it on a planet near you in the next 10 years or so, but still cool technology.

[DoggerDan]

The Litton AN/ASQ-119 Astrotracker was perfectly capable of pinpointing an aircraft's position anywhere on Earth within a few meters.

In 1965.

The same principles would work equally well on Mars, the Moon, or any other planet, as the same stars are visible from all bodies in our solar system. From what I understand, it filtered out Raleigh scattering, so it worked equally well in the daytime.

I'm of the opinion that an iPhone and an app has sufficient sensor and processing power to do the same to within a mile or two. Something build for the task could be no larger or more massive than an iPhone and bring it to within 100 meters.

[ravens_cry]

Dust storms on Mars can cover hemispheres and can last weeks, so star tracking might be a rather intermittent option.
I remember reading of plans for a Martian GPS system, any word on that?

[kamaz]

So what, are you going to be driving around in such a storm?

[ravens_cry]

So what, are you going to be driving around in such a storm?

If you're like Curiosity and are nuke powered, perhaps.

[MaDeR]

If your like Curiosity and are nuke powered, perhaps.

They aren't nuke-powered. No nuclear reactors onboard. No, RTG is not nuclear reactor.

[ravens_cry]

They aren't nuke-powered. No nuclear reactors onboard. No, RTG is not nuclear reactor.

I apologize for being over-colloquial, but my point stands that a RTG powered rover could operate even in dust storms, and therefore would need a guidance system that doesn't depend on star sightings.

[djellison]

To be fair - R_C didn't say 'nuclear reactor' - he said 'nuke powered'

Even the very first RTG's - the SNAP series ( used on Apollo ) were called "Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power"

Wikipedia's RTG page correctly has a section titled "Nuclear power systems in space"

Indeed - JPL themselves issued a press release called
"Mars Science Laboratory Launch Nuclear Safety"

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/604332main_A...S%203-2-11.pdf

If you're going to be pedantic about nomenclature - then you need to have a good reason. The fact he said "your" rather than "you're" would be one. That he said 'nuke' isn't.

And FWIW - in a very bad dust storm you wouldn't be driving a rover anyway, MMRTG, solar or otherwise - as you need your cameras to be able to see the terrain to safely navigate thru it, and see the sun to fine tune the rovers own knowledge of its orientation. In such situations, keeping mast mounted cameras pointed down to avoid getting a sand blasting is wise.

[ravens_cry]

Ok, I concede that dust storms would probably be bad driving conditions, but it would be pretty annoying to have to park the rover, especially if it is RTG powered and therefore has a definite life expectancy, just because it is overcast.

[djellison]

Would YOU go out for a hike in a dust storm?

I certainly wouldn't.

[ToSeek]

Ok, I concede that dust storms would probably be bad driving conditions, but it would be pretty annoying to have to park the rover, especially if it is RTG powered and therefore has a definite life expectancy, just because it is overcast.

Your typical RTG uses Plutonium-238, which has a half-life of 88 years. I doubt that's going to be a factor in the life expectancy of any Mars rover.

[ozprof]

Your typical RTG uses Plutonium-238, which has a half-life of 88 years. I doubt that's going to be a factor in the life expectancy of any Mars rover.

My understanding of RTG's is that it is not the exhaustion of the P-238 that is the problem, but the thermocouples that convert the heat into electricity. These degrade over time, and become more and more inefficient.