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New Software Stops Mars Rover Confusion

Posted by Zonk on from the robots-getting-smarter dept.

MattSparkes writes "The Mars rover Spirit used to get quite confused when it came upon a rock. Because it could only plan routes of a metre or two it couldn't understand how to navigate around large objects, and frequently used to rock back and forth for hours trying to figure it out. NASA have written new software called D* for the rover Opportunity, which should allow it to autonomously plan routes up to 50 metres long. The new software still won't be able to avoid sand-traps, though."

1 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Based on A*? by Xerotope · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is based on A*, in fact it stands for "Dynamic A*".

    It's designed for efficient re-planning as costs change due to information collected as the robot moves. It leverages the fact that cost updates occur close to the vehicle, so it's really only necessary to replan "locally" back to the A* path.

    That's a pretty dumbed down explanation. The original paper describing D* is here.

    The actual variant being used by NASA is called "Field D*", and is able to interpolate costs and cross graph states in an arbitrary fasion (not just 8-connected).