IPB

Welcome Guest ( Log In | Register )

ExoMars
Guest_Sunspot_*
post Aug 25 2005, 11:22 AM
Post #1





Guests






http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4180840.stm

Europe has fixed on a concept for its next mission to land on the Red Planet.

It aims to send a single robot rover to the Martian surface along with another, stationary, science package.
Go to the top of the page
 
+Quote Post
 
Start new topic
Replies
djellison
post Jun 16 2006, 02:38 PM
Post #2


Founder
****

Group: Chairman
Posts: 14431
Joined: 8-February 04
Member No.: 1



To be fair - it was hardly a beautiful tarmac highway....

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge05/gran...05/dsc_3925.jpg

There are bits of the floor of Gusev crater, and almost all of Meridiani where I would rather drive my car than on that road smile.gif

Doug
Go to the top of the page
 
+Quote Post
mcaplinger
post Jun 16 2006, 03:20 PM
Post #3


Senior Member
****

Group: Members
Posts: 2502
Joined: 13-September 05
Member No.: 497



QUOTE (djellison @ Jun 16 2006, 07:38 AM) *
To be fair - it was hardly a beautiful tarmac highway....

Most of the teams preprogrammed the entire route from airphotos/satellite images and could have (or did) dead-reckoned nearly the whole way on GPS without even having vision or laser-scanning systems. And the vision systems were highly optimized to find the road edges.

I looked at this fairly extensively a few months back, and in my opinion the applicability to planetary rovers is pretty low. I won't even discuss the relative power density between gasoline and solar or RTG systems. Between lidar and racks of processors, the GC vehicles were burning through kilowatts of electricity.


--------------------
Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
Go to the top of the page
 
+Quote Post
Guest_DonPMitchell_*
post Jun 16 2006, 07:26 PM
Post #4





Guests






QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Jun 16 2006, 08:20 AM) *
Most of the teams preprogrammed the entire route from airphotos/satellite images and could have (or did) dead-reckoned nearly the whole way on GPS without even having vision or laser-scanning systems. And the vision systems were highly optimized to find the road edges.


That's what I was getting at. It is a successful but special-purpose solution. I do think it is feasible to get a rover to avoid obsticles with occasional calls for help. But that takes another special-purpose solution that is pushing the state of the art. The rover is not going to be "smart" in any sense.

News articles about these kinds of things always exagerate, both because the journalists don't understand the science and because the academic culture has evolved to speak very aggressively and compete for precious small grant money. There is a natural tendancy to anthropormorphize, and you see blatent attempts to encourage that with projects like these. They are fun to check out, but what you see is misleading.

What biological brains do is indeed remarkable, and the robots you see in movies are pure science fiction. Nobody really knows how smart a computer could be if it was programmed correctly. Maybe a high-end PC could be as smart as a human, but the breakthrough in software technology has not happened yet.
Go to the top of the page
 
+Quote Post
Stephen
post Jun 23 2006, 12:32 PM
Post #5


Member
***

Group: Members
Posts: 307
Joined: 16-March 05
Member No.: 198



QUOTE (DonPMitchell @ Jun 16 2006, 07:26 PM) *
That's what I was getting at. It is a successful but special-purpose solution. I do think it is feasible to get a rover to avoid obsticles with occasional calls for help. But that takes another special-purpose solution that is pushing the state of the art. The rover is not going to be "smart" in any sense.

Actually, the issue here is navigation. Avoiding obstacles is only a very tiny part of that.

In that respect Meridani and Gusev are not really very challenging sites and Spirit and Opportunity not really very representative of the kinds of rovers that will be needed to traverse them. Both sites are largely open plains where for the most part obstacles are few and far between and those which do occur a rover can generally (the sandtraps Opportunity keeps getting itself mired in are an important exception) see coming for dozens of yards if not a mile or two off, and thus can identify them (and work out a way around them) long before it actually encounters and has to deal with them. Even the dune/ripple fields Opportunity is currently traversing are no real obstacle. Not only can it see over their tops, when it comes to an end of a trough instead backtracking and going around to another it generally simply rolls over a ripple to a neighbouring trough. That sort of solution would have been far less viable, if not downright impossible, had it been confronted by (say) the kind of rock-filled obstacle course Sojourner faced at its site.

As for the rovers themselves, the task of navigating Spirit and Opportunity is done almost entirely by minds back on Earth. For example, Opportunity does not decide for itself which sand trough to travel down. Its human babysitters decide for it. In that respect nothing much has really changed since the days of the Soviet lunar rovers of the 1970s and it seems unlikely to change any time soon; and even if it could change it needs to be remembered that a rover is really only a kind of proxy explorer for its human controllers on Earth. The latter will want to decide for themselves where their proxy is going. That inevitably is going to slow rover progress down to the speed the humans can get pics and other information back from the rover to Earth, make a decision, then upload the next batch of instructions. Not to mention limiting it to how far the humans can see.

QUOTE (DonPMitchell @ Jun 16 2006, 07:26 PM) *
What biological brains do is indeed remarkable, and the robots you see in movies are pure science fiction. Nobody really knows how smart a computer could be if it was programmed correctly. Maybe a high-end PC could be as smart as a human, but the breakthrough in software technology has not happened yet.

No existing PC, high-end or otherwise, would be able to run such software--because no PC yet invented can match the speed of the human brain. Individually, neurons are certainly slow-coaches compared to even the slowest electronic CPU, but when they are harnessed in parallel, as the human brain does, they can process information at blinding speeds. You have only to consider how fast your own brain can identify obstacles in front of you and get you to react in some appropriate fashion then compare it to the time it takes Spirit or Opportunity to decide that the rock in front of them is an obstacle they have to go round rather than over.

Hardware breakthroughs as well as software ones will be needed before electronic brains became as smart as human ones. (And even then do not expect to see them being placed inside rovers and rocketed off on one-way trips to Mars. The creation of AI's is going to pose all kinds of ethical dilemmas when they do eventuate. For if computers ever do become as smart as human beings one issue that is inevitably going to be raised at some point is whether they should be accorded the same rights as human beings. That would presumably include not being sent off to other planets on what would amount to suicide missions.)

======
Stephen
Go to the top of the page
 
+Quote Post
djellison
post Jun 23 2006, 12:39 PM
Post #6


Founder
****

Group: Chairman
Posts: 14431
Joined: 8-February 04
Member No.: 1



QUOTE (Stephen @ Jun 23 2006, 01:32 PM) *
n that respect nothing much has really changed since the days of the Soviet lunar rovers of the 1970s and it seems unlikely to change any time soon; and even if it could change it needs to be remembered that a rover is really only a kind of proxy explorer for its human controllers on Earth.


Actually - that's not quite fair - Sojourner and MER were both able to be given a target point, and make progress toward that target point, and would avoid obsticles in the way, navigate around them and return to the target point. There was one great example where Spirit actually gave up and drove backwards around an obsticle early on.

So yes - you couldn't say to Spirit "go to the top of Husband Hill " from the rim of Bonneville..it still requires people in the loop on a daily basis - BUT - it's a lot smarter than you give credit for really.

Doug
Go to the top of the page
 
+Quote Post

Posts in this topic
- Sunspot   ExoMars   Aug 25 2005, 11:22 AM
- - Marcel   They want to land that rover so badly......(which ...   Aug 25 2005, 01:21 PM
- - djellison   And why the american data realy - is MEX expected ...   Aug 25 2005, 01:39 PM
|- - Marcel   QUOTE (djellison @ Aug 25 2005, 01:39 PM)And ...   Aug 25 2005, 01:52 PM
- - RNeuhaus   What is MEX? I haven't heard of it. Will be gl...   Aug 25 2005, 02:43 PM
|- - Marcel   QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Aug 25 2005, 02:43 PM)What ...   Aug 25 2005, 02:52 PM
- - RNeuhaus   Ooppss, it is a smart word! Thanks Marcel.   Aug 25 2005, 02:54 PM
- - djellison   One thing space isnt short of it's Acronyms ...   Aug 25 2005, 02:56 PM
|- - Marcel   QUOTE (djellison @ Aug 25 2005, 02:56 PM)One ...   Aug 25 2005, 02:58 PM
||- - Marcel   QUOTE (Marcel @ Aug 25 2005, 02:58 PM)And you...   Aug 25 2005, 02:59 PM
|- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE (djellison @ Aug 25 2005, 09:56 AM)One ...   Aug 25 2005, 02:58 PM
- - Cugel   From the article: QUOTE a mass of 120kg for the ...   Aug 25 2005, 03:13 PM
|- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE (Cugel @ Aug 25 2005, 10:13 AM)From the...   Aug 25 2005, 03:20 PM
- - djellison   A straight copy of the Beagle 2 science payload wo...   Aug 25 2005, 03:25 PM
- - djellison   Oh MODY - some call it MO2k1- Mars Odyssey Doug   Aug 25 2005, 04:12 PM
- - SigurRosFan   Will SMILE fly to Mars with ESA's ExoMars?? h...   Aug 25 2005, 07:32 PM
- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE SigurRosFan(Posted Today, 02:32 PM) The ESA ...   Aug 25 2005, 08:02 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   One reason that NASA decided not to fly a 1-meter ...   Aug 25 2005, 08:28 PM
- - SigurRosFan   Sorry. Wrong link. MOA will fly definitely(...   Aug 25 2005, 08:44 PM
- - Rakhir   Alcatel Alenia Space starts the ExoMars mission de...   Jan 31 2006, 01:25 PM
|- - vikingmars   Here is the missing link : http://www.alcatel.com/...   Jan 31 2006, 03:05 PM
- - AlexBlackwell   Excerpt from the February 13, 2006, issue of Aviat...   Feb 13 2006, 11:39 PM
- - Rakhir   Europe Mars shot looks to upgrade http://news.bb...   Mar 16 2006, 01:07 PM
|- - AlexBlackwell   QUOTE (Rakhir @ Mar 16 2006, 01:07 PM) Eu...   Mar 16 2006, 06:00 PM
- - ljk4-1   The technology for this "lab on a chip" ...   Apr 25 2006, 02:51 PM
|- - tty   QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Apr 25 2006, 04:51 P...   Apr 25 2006, 08:43 PM
- - PhilHorzempa   Even though the American Mars program has been cut...   May 26 2006, 03:03 AM
|- - jamescanvin   QUOTE (PhilHorzempa @ May 26 2006, 01:03 ...   May 26 2006, 04:14 AM
|- - AndyG   QUOTE (jamescanvin @ May 26 2006, 05:14 A...   May 26 2006, 09:31 AM
||- - karolp   At the first sight what looks much different to me...   May 26 2006, 10:17 AM
||- - djellison   QUOTE (karolp @ May 26 2006, 11:17 AM) At...   May 30 2006, 12:22 PM
|- - Bob Shaw   Here's one I prepared earlier! Bob Shaw   May 26 2006, 11:43 AM
|- - ustrax   QUOTE (jamescanvin @ May 26 2006, 05:14 A...   May 26 2006, 01:40 PM
- - lyford   That's a really nice pic - looks like the dril...   May 26 2006, 04:00 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   I suspect ESA is not going to be able to come anyw...   May 26 2006, 04:39 AM
|- - Stephen   I notice the ExoMars rover as drawn in those pics ...   May 31 2006, 01:50 AM
|- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE (Stephen @ May 30 2006, 08:50 PM) I...   May 31 2006, 09:41 PM
- - remcook   QUOTE (lyford @ May 26 2006, 05:00 AM) Li...   May 26 2006, 08:48 AM
- - Cugel   And armed to kill! I wonder if the motors on ...   May 27 2006, 02:40 PM
|- - jamescanvin   QUOTE (Cugel @ May 28 2006, 12:40 AM) The...   May 28 2006, 01:27 AM
|- - Bob Shaw   I hope they have some way to pop the drill assembl...   May 28 2006, 01:36 AM
- - PhilCo126   Well, the ESA Marsrover ExoMars 2011 project is f...   May 30 2006, 11:40 AM
|- - jaredGalen   QUOTE (PhilCo126 @ May 30 2006, 11:40 AM)...   May 30 2006, 10:00 PM
- - ljk4-1   British Scientists Unveil Latest Craft To Search F...   Jun 13 2006, 12:53 PM
|- - ustrax   QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Jun 13 2006, 01:53 P...   Jun 13 2006, 01:07 PM
|- - ljk4-1   QUOTE (ustrax @ Jun 13 2006, 09:07 AM) Br...   Jun 13 2006, 01:59 PM
|- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Jun 13 2006, 08:59 A...   Jun 13 2006, 03:58 PM
|- - helvick   QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Jun 13 2006, 04:58 PM) ...   Jun 13 2006, 09:30 PM
- - Analyst   I am from Europe, but this article is cheap talk, ...   Jun 13 2006, 01:49 PM
|- - djellison   QUOTE (Analyst @ Jun 13 2006, 02:49 PM) I...   Jun 13 2006, 02:05 PM
- - Analyst   Good point.   Jun 13 2006, 02:31 PM
- - Redstone   Haven't seen this posted yet, so... You can d...   Jun 13 2006, 02:33 PM
|- - ustrax   Bridget: (origin: Gaelic.) Brighid, "fiery da...   Jun 13 2006, 02:48 PM
|- - Bob Shaw   QUOTE (Redstone @ Jun 13 2006, 03:33 PM) ...   Jun 13 2006, 05:54 PM
- - DonPMitchell   Space programs are fundamentally competative, whic...   Jun 13 2006, 04:35 PM
- - RNeuhaus   Helvick, Your comments are for Amen! Much impr...   Jun 13 2006, 09:53 PM
- - djellison   Of course, with custom realtime OS's - the pro...   Jun 13 2006, 09:58 PM
|- - helvick   QUOTE (djellison @ Jun 13 2006, 10:58 PM)...   Jun 13 2006, 10:29 PM
|- - mcaplinger   QUOTE (djellison @ Jun 13 2006, 02:58 PM)...   Jun 14 2006, 02:24 AM
|- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Jun 13 2006, 09:24 PM...   Jun 14 2006, 02:59 AM
||- - mcaplinger   QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Jun 13 2006, 07:59 PM) ...   Jun 14 2006, 03:45 AM
||- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Jun 13 2006, 10:45 PM...   Jun 14 2006, 04:45 PM
||- - helvick   QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Jun 14 2006, 05:45 PM) ...   Jun 15 2006, 04:49 PM
|- - helvick   QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Jun 14 2006, 03:24 AM...   Jun 14 2006, 06:48 AM
- - lyford   Did someone say RAD 750 User Manuals? And much mo...   Jun 14 2006, 12:04 AM
- - monitorlizard   I'm an absolute idiot when it comes to compute...   Jun 14 2006, 01:43 AM
- - DonPMitchell   The Bell Labs inventor of UNIX, Ken Thompson, was ...   Jun 14 2006, 03:23 AM
|- - Bob Shaw   QUOTE (DonPMitchell @ Jun 14 2006, 04:23 ...   Jun 14 2006, 09:34 AM
|- - DonPMitchell   QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Jun 14 2006, 02:34 AM) ...   Jun 14 2006, 05:04 PM
- - RNeuhaus   Brits Unveil Latest Robot To Search For Life On Ma...   Jun 15 2006, 03:37 PM
- - hendric   What's your thoughts on the DARPA challenge? ...   Jun 16 2006, 05:49 AM
|- - mcaplinger   QUOTE (hendric @ Jun 15 2006, 10:49 PM) W...   Jun 16 2006, 02:13 PM
- - djellison   We don't have a Mars GPS system, and we're...   Jun 16 2006, 06:20 AM
- - DonPMitchell   It would save a lot of time and planning if a rove...   Jun 16 2006, 07:17 AM
- - djellison   Don - have you seen the results of the Darpa chall...   Jun 16 2006, 09:01 AM
- - ljk4-1   Jim Bell said that during certain points of the da...   Jun 16 2006, 02:09 PM
- - djellison   To be fair - it was hardly a beautiful tarmac high...   Jun 16 2006, 02:38 PM
|- - mcaplinger   QUOTE (djellison @ Jun 16 2006, 07:38 AM)...   Jun 16 2006, 03:20 PM
|- - DonPMitchell   QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Jun 16 2006, 08:20 AM...   Jun 16 2006, 07:26 PM
|- - Stephen   QUOTE (DonPMitchell @ Jun 16 2006, 07:26 ...   Jun 23 2006, 12:32 PM
||- - djellison   QUOTE (Stephen @ Jun 23 2006, 01:32 PM) n...   Jun 23 2006, 12:39 PM
|- - Cugel   QUOTE (DonPMitchell @ Jun 16 2006, 07:26 ...   Jun 23 2006, 02:42 PM
- - djellison   Oh - I quite agree ( and mentioned earlier ) there...   Jun 16 2006, 03:29 PM
|- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE (djellison @ Jun 16 2006, 10:29 AM)...   Jun 16 2006, 04:06 PM
- - PhilCo126   Here's the cover of ESA BUlletin we talked abo...   Jun 22 2006, 11:07 AM
- - dvandorn   Cugel, we're talking about artificial *intelli...   Jun 23 2006, 05:24 PM
- - Greg Hullender   Has anyone proposed a manned mission for the purpo...   Jun 24 2006, 04:52 PM
|- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Jun 24 2006, 11:5...   Jun 24 2006, 08:52 PM
||- - djellison   QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Jun 24 2006, 09:52 PM) ...   Jun 24 2006, 08:58 PM
||- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE (djellison @ Jun 24 2006, 03:58 PM)...   Jun 25 2006, 01:29 AM
|- - elakdawalla   QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Jun 24 2006, 09:5...   Jun 24 2006, 10:41 PM
- - remcook   I've heard people on message boards like these...   Jun 24 2006, 05:40 PM
- - djellison   I confess...I've driven every functional RRGTM...   Jun 24 2006, 10:54 PM
- - elakdawalla   Beautiful work, Doug! To get the TPS one t...   Jun 24 2006, 11:43 PM
- - elakdawalla   Question -- would faster microprocessors also requ...   Jun 25 2006, 01:39 AM
- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Jun 24 2006, 08:39 P...   Jun 25 2006, 01:54 AM
- - mchan   Well, I wouldn't say definitely. In general, ...   Jun 25 2006, 05:19 AM
- - helvick   QUOTE (mchan @ Jun 25 2006, 06:19 AM) Rad...   Jun 25 2006, 10:09 AM
- - RNeuhaus   QUOTE (mchan @ Jun 25 2006, 12:19 AM) Wel...   Jun 26 2006, 12:12 AM
- - mchan   Sounds like a different Moore than the one I am fa...   Jun 26 2006, 09:13 AM
6 Pages V   1 2 3 > » 


Reply to this topicStart new topic

 



RSS Lo-Fi Version Time is now: 19th March 2024 - 08:08 AM
RULES AND GUIDELINES
Please read the Forum Rules and Guidelines before posting.

IMAGE COPYRIGHT
Images posted on UnmannedSpaceflight.com may be copyrighted. Do not reproduce without permission. Read here for further information on space images and copyright.

OPINIONS AND MODERATION
Opinions expressed on UnmannedSpaceflight.com are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UnmannedSpaceflight.com or The Planetary Society. The all-volunteer UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderation team is wholly independent of The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has no influence over decisions made by the UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderators.
SUPPORT THE FORUM
Unmannedspaceflight.com is funded by the Planetary Society. Please consider supporting our work and many other projects by donating to the Society or becoming a member.