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NASA Gives Mars Rover Extra Smarts
coondoggie writes "NASA today said it upgraded the software controlling its Mars Rover Opportunity to let it make its own decisions about what items like rocks and interesting red planet formations to focus its cameras on. The new system, which NASA uploaded over the past few months, is called Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science, or AEGIS and it lets Opportunity's computer examine images that the rover takes with its wide-angle navigation camera after a drive, and recognize rocks that meet specified criteria, such as rounded shape or light color. It can then center its narrower-angle panoramic camera on the chosen target and take multiple images through color filters, NASA stated."
Good upgrade but I really gotta question the added 'inferiority complex routine' listed in the release notes that requires the rover to periodically contemplate its ultimate fate and update a twitter feed where NASA engineers can either encourage the rover or ridicule it.
My work here is dung.
...welcome our newly upgraded martian overlord.
Can anyone give any insight behind how they perform upgrades like this?
I'm sure we all have a "friend" who has bricked a router doing something. Thankfully my Sheeva Plug has JTAG built in and was able to get to the interface through that.
Send everything, checksum it and then flash? If something goes wrong (solar wind) is there a very basic firmware that sits and listens? Probably some basic security so the Chinese can't sit there and flood it with fake update requests?
I'm sure stuff is a lot more fun when pings aren't measured in seconds or minutes.
That's nice and all, but will it start looking for John Connor yet, or do we have to wait for the next upgrade?
I'm amazed at how long Spirit and Opportunity have lasted. Spirit is stuck in place but is still giving us very good data and Opportunity is still kicking and researching well. Aside from some minor problems with the robotic arm, Opportunity is doing fine. These missions have now lasted years when they were expected to last 90 days. These are really amazing pieces of engineering and I hope that NASA is taking a lot of notes about them for how to design future probes. The engineers who made these must be very proud. And now one of their two babies is getting to make decisions for itself! Awww...
...that I hate backronyms.
The autonomy of these rovers is already quite impressive, as they can choose parts of their paths based on a braveness variable provided by the engineers.
This latest enhancement is really interesting, essentially giving them something of a sense of curiosity. I'm not trying to anthropomorphize; the rovers are now allowed to use some sort of Bayesian-like algorithms for determining objects of interest, and examining them without direct input from us. This gives them the potential for returning more scientifically interesting information for the communication cycle.
Way to go, NASA! You guys rock!
... the rover gets to look at curvy, fair-textured things on the job, and take colored photos of them.
Would "rovingeyes" be an appropriate tag?
... that they can do a software upgrade of this kind adding a major feature such as this, remotely, without "bricking" it, and without the ability to add more CPU or RAM. Amazing job, guys!
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science
Clearly from the lameness of the title they chose the acronym first and then found a title to fit it. Why anyone would think its appropriate to use the acronym AEGIS for something that doesn't involve defense or a shield I dont know.
http://xkcd.com/695/
Technoli
Spirit and Opportunity have been the most successful NASA project since Armstrong landed on the Moon. What I find curious is that we have not launched a dozen or so more of these capable rovers to the Red Planet.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Another Excuse to Get Itself Stuck
Have gnu, will travel.
Well, thank god it's gathering increased science. I would hate to think that we were collecting decreased science. Perhaps we could design a program and call it Autonomous System for Scientific and HOlistic Learning and Exploration.
Then again, we could have called it Rover OS 2.0.
It takes 4 to 20 minutes for data to travel between Earth and Mars (each way) depending on the planet positions.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/137509/coolest_tech_jobs_driving_the_mars_rover.html
Still, Mars is one of the closest planet to Earth. It looks like we will need to find some kind of warp driven data transfer mechanism to network the planets and take full advantage of IPv6 for real time applications. ;-)
Achieving warp speed for data transfer should be easier than for matter and human beings so I suggest we look at this first. ;-))
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
The downside? No travel expenses.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They're playing it very safe, as they should be. This is very basic autonomous functionality. The kind that an undergrad CS student might implement for a semester project. Not to say it isn't amazing and great and all...but they're pushing any groundbreaking software into these bots.
Newsflash: A mysterious intelligent probe calling itself "O'nity" is threatening Earth. Scientists say that it is demanding access to "interesting rocks and formations"
behold! http://xkcd.com/695/
Hypotetically speaking: If they broadcast the programs, and I get that transmission and save that software. Is it considering pirating?
If it gets stuck again, it can just call NASA and say "I NEED YOUR HALP!".
NASA today said it upgraded the software controlling its Mars Rover Opportunity to let it make its own decisions about what items like rocks and interesting red planet formations to focus its cameras on.
Opportunity (via IM): i spy with my little eye something beginning with the letter r
JPL: rock
(sixteen minutes later)
Opportunity: right! yr turn!
JPL: ok - letter m
(sixteen minutes later)
Opportunity: u have 2 say the whole thing. u lose a turn! i would have guessed mug.
Opportunity: i spy with my little eye something beginning with the letter s.
(later that day)
Opportunity: can we stop for ice cream?
JPL: no ice cream on mars. we discussed this.
(sixteen minutes later)
Opportunity: compute 65% prob object in dist is dairy queen. c pix
JPL: object is crater edge. 5km away. 6 sols travel time min.
JPL: see crystal formations < 500m NNW. that will be fun. lets go there.
(sixteen minutes later)
Opportunity: DQ! DQ! DQ!!1!
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
This reminds me of the rover on Planet 51, which was just absolutely nuts for collecting rocks, while seemingly unaware of the intelligent species and the thriving civilization all around it.
You'll have to excuse me, I have young children.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
don't read the subject line.
Bow-ties are cool.
Ya, NASA known what to look for. But are they always right?
So Nasa now has an Aegis cruiser on another world. The War of the Worlds can now begin. Clearly the stationary Spirit rover did not qualify for the upgrade.
Best laugh I have had in a long while! Actually got spittle on my laptop.
Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science, or AEGIS
The acronym seemed a bit contrived to me, but I didn't give it much thought. :)
It was when I finished reading, and noted one of the tags was CRAPRONYM, that I burst out laughing.