The Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) from the 2003 flight mission represents the state of the art technology for target approach and instrument placement on Mars. It currently takes 3 sols (Martian days) for the rover to place an instrument on a designated rock target that is about 10 to 20 m away. The objective of this project is to provide an experimentally validated single-sol instrument placement capability to future Mars missions. After completing numerous test runs on the Rocky8 rover under various test conditions, it has been observed that lighting conditions, shadow effects, target features and the initial target distance have an effect on the performance and reliability of the tracking software. Additional software validation testing will be conducted in the months to come.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Approach and Instrument Placement Validation


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2005-08-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English