A cadre of 20 smart robots developed by Carnegie Mellon researchers have been deployed at some of the nation’s most prestigious science museums. They’re helping visitors experience the thrill of exploring Mars at the same time NASA’s explorers Spirit and Opportunity do the real thing.
The Personal Exploration Rovers (PERs), developed with support from NASA and Intel Corp., are residing in "Mars Yards," specially designed to mimic Martian terrain at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.; its new Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport; the National Science Center in Augusta, Ga.; The San Francisco Exploratorium; and the new visitor's center at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.
The “MarsBots” are 1.2-feet tall, weigh 10 pounds and can move an inch and a half per second. Their mobility systems are similar to those of the actual Mars rovers. The mini-rovers are equipped with 360-degree cameras and ultraviolet light to search for signs of organo-fluorescence, or signs of life. The project is funded by a $600,000 grant from NASA and Intel Corp. to develop educational robots.
Illah Nourbakhsh, project director and associate professor of robotics at the School of Computer Science, said the goal is “to excite and inspire kids about science and technology and the role of rovers and rover autonomy in doing space science. "We want people to understand why it's important for the rovers to be smart."
“With the Personal Exploration Rover, students can learn how robots interact with the world and see for themselves how the future might look as we have more and more robots helping us in our everyday life,” said G. Scott Hubbard, director of NASA’s Ames Research Center.
Daniel Clancy, director of information sciences and technology at NASA Ames said this project is part of a larger effort to develop low-cost robotic devices that can be used in education, science museums and the home. “It's really about the whole creative process and exploring how you can program a device to do interesting tasks," he said.
The PERs are powered by Intel® XScale® technology using Intel® PXA255 processors, which provide high system performance and low power consumption. The rovers run the Linux operating system and are programmed in Java.
Visiting "mission scientists" access the PERs through a kiosk, and then partner with a rover as it moves through the yard, scanning rocks and soil to find signs of life. The PER illuminates selected rocks with ultraviolet light to look for signs of organo-fluorescence to provide scientific data. The rovers can also detect obstacles using an optical rangefinder.
The PER project is supported through the NASA Ames Intelligent Systems Program and Intel.
For more, see:
The Personal Rover Project
The Personal Exploration Rover
NASA - Mars
