ExoMars Options

[djellison]

Actually - the current interpretation of Moore's law is that processor density will double every 18 months. People read that as a double of CPU performance every 18 months, but that's not true.

Doug

[RNeuhaus]

I agree to leave the above discussion about the microprocessors power consumption since it is too complex and vast which would lead a very long discussion to understand the technology trends versus power consumption. Besides this theme is not focused to the above topic: ExoMars. I forgive to the audience due to the confusion and noise.

Rodolfo

[Stephen]

"[I]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

I fully appreciate that the remarkable achievements of both Spirit and Opportunity have only really been possible due to the software "smarts" in them. But at the same time we need to keep things in perspective. The reality is that most of the rovers' intelligence is still sitting inside human brains on Earth. In fact had it not been for the greater distance to Mars and the intermittent nature of communications with the rovers those rovers would probably be being driven in real time--or almost real time, as in the case of the Soviet Lunokhods. Or at least the people with control of the funding would doubtless have queried the need to spend money on autonomous driving for them--just as car manufacturers have never (well, at least until recently) bothered spending money developing cars which drive themselves or which prevent their human drivers driving into power poles or off cliffs. They rely on the human beings at the wheel being smart enough not to do such things.

Since the rovers' human masters can't drive their proxies in real time, however, that has necessarily meant giving the rovers a large degree of autonomy. Without that they would not have been able to accomplish their mission at all.

But we should not kid ourselves. The "smarts" the rovers do have are largely there to stop the smart humans doing dumb things with their martian proxies by telling them to do things which may damage the rover or the mission. Like telling the rovers (unwittingly) to drive off cliffs or over tall boulders. In particular AFAIK the rovers have no learning capability. The "smarts" they do have are largely wired into them. If they do make a blunder--like wandering into a sandtrap--it's up to their human masters not them to learn the lesson and then find ways to avoid it happening again, such as tweaking software parameters or not sending them through places where the same conditions that caused the blunder might occur again.

So like I said. Let's keep things in perspective. Spirit and Opportunity are undoubtedly "smarter" than their predecessors. (Remember that famous pic of Sojourner with one wheel perched against a rock many times larger than itself, as if it had been attempting to scale it before it realised its blunder? ) But at the same time those "smarts" are also largely an illusion, the product of clever programming, just as an old computer program named "Eliza" could give users the illusion of talking to a certain kind of psychiatrist.

One day rovers & other bots will be able to do a lot more for themselves. They'll need to if their human masters are ever to send them into places where communications with their masters become not merely intermittent but impossible, such as driving down martian lava tubes or diving beneath the ice of Europa. But that day is not here yet.

======
Stephen

[Cugel]

marsdaily

Here they talk about Exomars having more autonomy. It sort of has a backseat driver build in....

[SkyeLab]

ExoMars prototype on show at Farnborough Air Show.
Link to a webcam situated on the test bed chassis "Bridget"
http://www.eads.net/web/lang/en/1024/conte...6/41401960.html

Story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5186596.stm

Cheers

Brian

[SFJCody]

ExoMars prototype on show at Farnborough Air Show.

Brian

Saw it there yesterday. Also picked up bunches of leaflets- will see if there's anything new in them (didn't have time to ask questions).

[lyford]

they have live feeds from the "pancam" -

I call this one

"A Space Enthusiast Makes His Move"

Watch those hands, mister!

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

they have live feeds from the "pancam" -

I call this one

"A Space Enthusiast Makes His Move"

Or "After Struggle, Rover (Groper) Finally Reaches Shoulder on the way to Twin Peaks."

[nprev]

I'd have to characterize this as an assisted encounter: using an intermediate body for trajectory adjustment...

[lyford]

I hope this doesn't devolve into another "near one far one" debate.....

[dvandorn]

I just want some of you imagery wizards to tell us which of the Twin Peaks is larger, or at least which protrudes more... or are we seeing a rare instance of Nature's perfection, and each mound is exactly the same size?



-the other Doug

[lyford]

Apparently the webcam is following standard ESA image release guidelines....

"Updating every 10 seconds" and the same pic is still up there from this morning! (Or has that exhibit closed?)

EDIT - FIxed link to pic in earlier post. I guess it's back to being updated - good thing I got a screen grab of our friends - seems the archive is no longer there.

[karolp]

Oh, it seems there is a lot more to that image! If we shift our attention away from the twin peaks and towards the FACE of the guy, we can easily see that the one behind him is also busy attempting to perform a sort of a Vulcan mind meld :-)

[GravityWaves]

Here's the cover of ESA BUlletin we talked about ( FREE copies available via ESA publications )
http://www.esa.int/esaMI/ESA_Publications/index.html

nice looking rover

[jamescanvin]

The BBC is reporting that the Exomars launch is being pushed back to 2013 but that it may now include an orbiter.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6133712.stm

James