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Drive a Rover on Mars

Posted by michael on from the sorta dept.

Richard McElligott writes "Hi, the Active Robotics Lab at University of Reading has put up an online networked robot that can roam around a simulated martian landscape. All you need is sun java from www.java.com and you can view streaming online video and control the rover around the landscape using only your browser."

1 of 6 comments (clear)

  1. version in the US by Gkeeper80 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    There is a version of this in the US. The Smithsonian museums have a "Mars Rover" that roams around a specially build terrain. It's computer controlled, although I haven't seen it hooked up to the Internet. It uses standard 802.11b to tell the rover how to move and there's a special java program that runs on a local work station.

    You give the rover a destination, and a degree of rotation from it's current location, it then navigates the rocks and even goes around them if they are too big. The whole time it's sending back images to the workstation.

    I got to run this thing for 5 hours at my local Space Day at a Smithsonian hanger in Dulles Airport. It was great for the first few times, but I got sick of explaining the thing to kids by the end. There are 3 on tour through the US now.