AUTONOMOUS ROVERS FOR MARS EXPLORATION

AUTONOMOUS ROVERS FOR MARS EXPLORATION

ABSTRACT:

            The Pathfinder mission demonstrated the potential for robotic Mars exploration but at the same time indicated the need for more robust rover autonomy. Decision support systems (DSS), Data warehousing, an integral part of artificial intelligence provides an infrastructure that    enables future planned missions call for long traverses over unknown terrain, robust navigation and instrument placement, and reliable operations for extended periods of time.
                Ultimately, missions may visit multiple science sites in a single day and perform opportunistic science data collection, as well as complex scouting, construction and maintenance tasks in preparation for an eventual human presence. Significant advances in robust autonomous operations are needed to enable these types of missions. Majority of a firm's intellectual assets exist as knowledge in the minds of its employees. What is needed is a new generation of knowledge-enabled systems that provides the infrastructure needed to capture, cleanse, store, organize, leverage and disseminate not only data and information but also the knowledge of the firm.
                  The basic purpose of a data warehouse is to empower the rovers (knowledge workers) with information that allows them to make decisions based on a solid foundation of fact. Thus, the purpose of DSS is knowledge improvement. This expanded purpose of DSS also suggests that the effectiveness of a DSS will, in future be measured based on how well it promotes and enhances knowledge, how well it improves the mental models and understanding of the decision makers and thereby how well it improves its decision making.
                   Towards this end, we have designed an onboard executive architecture that incorporates robust flexible operation, resource utilization and failure recovery.
            In addition, we have designed ground tools to produce and refine contingent schedules that take advantage of the onboard architectures flexible execution characteristics.

http://www.rssbol.com