Routing software for the Mars – Heise Newsticker

The Valles Marineris are considered the Grand Canyon of Mars. The difficult terrain has some obstacles that must be taken into account during navigation.

(Photo: Kevin Gill / Flickr / cc-by-sa-2.0)

This exploration robot can navigate on Mars, developed by a research group, a radio-based routing software. A variety of distributed in the Martian soil buoys should it calculate the position data.

satellite navigation system such as GPS, GLONASS and Beidou deliver on earth position data. On a comparable infrastructure, you can not put in the exploration of Mars. Therefore, alternative positioning systems must be developed. Researchers at the University of Würzburg, the University of Erlangen and the company Anavs have teamed up and want to work in the next three years a routing software based instead of satellites on a network of radio buoys on Martian soil. The reported Technology Review online “navigating by radio on Mars” in.

Looking for life should

This software then make a swarm of drones, walking robots and rovers on Mars to search for life. Especially in the area of ​​martian Valles Marineris, this promises to be promising. NASA had confirmed over the past year, have there found evidence for liquid water. But the area has a number of obstacles that need to be considered in the development.

The idea of ​​the team to Sergio Montenegro from the Department of Information Technology Aerospace Würzburg University is to spread a network of radio buoys on the surface of Mars. You could be thrown off the lander during the approach. The buoys send then radio signals to Lander. Over the life of a framework for the removal. Since all buoys calculate their positions to each other, finally can determine the location data of the mobile robot. The measurement of the duration of which must be carried out to the nanosecond, because an error of a thousandth of a second would already mean, according to the scientists, a deviation of 300 kilometers.

Navigate to the soil sample

The radio buoys deliver mobile robots the necessary navigation and positioning data. “For example, when a flying drone has discovered from the air an interesting structure in which it might be worthwhile to take a soil sample, it must inform the corresponding robot the exact location,” says the computer scientist Montenegro. Although empty, the battery of the drone, they should know the way to Lander to refuel there again.

Read more at Technology Review online:

(jle)