[meteorite-list] NASA Mars Rover Getting Smarter as it Gets Older

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:31:47 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201003232131.o2NLVlDD026705_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-094

NASA Mars Rover Getting Smarter as it Gets Older
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
March 23, 2010

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, now in
its seventh year on Mars, has a new capability to make its own choices
about whether to make additional observations of rocks that it spots on
arrival at a new location.

Software uploaded this winter is the latest example of NASA taking
advantage of the twin Mars rovers' unanticipated longevity for real
Martian test drives of advances made in robotic autonomy for future
missions.

Now, Opportunity's computer can examine images that the rover takes with
its wide-angle navigation camera after a drive, and recognize rocks that
meet specified criteria, such as rounded shape or light color. It can
then center its narrower-angle panoramic camera on the chosen target and
take multiple images through color filters.

"It's a way to get some bonus science," said Tara Estlin of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. She is a rover driver, a senior
member of JPL's Artificial Intelligence Group and leader of development
for this new software system.

The new system is called Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased
Science, or AEGIS. Without it, follow-up observations depend on first
transmitting the post-drive navigation camera images to Earth for ground
operators to check for targets of interest to examine on a later day.
Because of time and data-volume constraints, the rover team may opt to
drive the rover again before potential targets are identified or before
examining targets that aren't highest priority.

The first images taken by a Mars rover choosing its own target show a
rock about the size of a football, tan in color and layered in texture.
It appears to be one of the rocks tossed outward onto the surface when
an impact dug a nearby crater. Opportunity pointed its panoramic camera
at this unnamed rock after analyzing a wider-angle photo taken by the
rover's navigation camera at the end of a drive on March 4. Opportunity
decided that this particular rock, out of more than 50 in the navigation
camera photo, best met the criteria that researchers had set for a
target of interest: large and dark.

"It found exactly the target we would want it to find," Estlin said.
"This checkout went just as we had planned, thanks to many people's
work, but it's still amazing to see Opportunity performing a new
autonomous activity after more than six years on Mars."

Opportunity can use the new software at stopping points along a single
day's drive or at the end of the day's drive. This enables it to
identify and examine targets of interest that might otherwise be missed.

"We spent years developing this capability on research rovers in the
Mars Yard here at JPL," said Estlin. "Six years ago, we never expected
that we would get a chance to use it on Opportunity."

The developers anticipate that the software will be useful for narrower
field-of-view instruments on future rovers.

Other upgrades to software on Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, since
the rovers' first year on Mars have improved other capabilities. These
include choosing a route around obstacles and calculating how far to
reach out a rover's arm to touch a rock. In 2007, both rovers gained the
know-how to examine sets of sky images to determine which ones show
clouds or dust devils, and then to transmit only the selected images.
The newest software upload takes that a step further, enabling
Opportunity to make decisions about acquiring new observations.

The AEGIS software lets scientists change the criteria it used for
choosing potential targets. In some environments, rocks that are dark
and angular could be higher-priority targets than rocks that are light
and rounded, for example.

This new software system has been developed with assistance from NASA's
Mars Exploration Rover Project and with funding from the New Millennium
Program, the Mars Technology Program, the JPL Interplanetary Network
Development Program, and the Intelligent Systems Program. The New
Millennium Program tests advanced technology in space flight. JPL, a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages
the Mars Exploration Rover Project for the NASA Science Mission
Directorate, Washington.

More information about the Mars rovers is online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/rovers. More information about AEGIS is at:
http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/newsandevents/newsdetails/?NewsID=677.


Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2010-094
Received on Tue 23 Mar 2010 05:31:47 PM PDT


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