NASA rovers have revealed fascinating details and close-up images of Mars and the moon, but exploring other planets is slow. Most rovers are remotely controlled from Earth, and their careful, energy-efficient design limits how much ground they can cover.
Now, new research from the University of Basel, ETH Zurich, and the European Space Agency, published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Space Technologies, examines how robots that can “think” for themselves might help us search a planet’s surface much faster.
Because rovers are built and guided in specific ways, exploration is often limited, making it hard to collect data across a large area of the planet. It also takes a while to transmit data across the vast distance between Earth and other celestial bodies.
“Rovers are designed for energy efficiency and safety, and to move slowly across hazardous terrain,” the researchers said in a statement. “Here, we tested a different approach.”
They experimented with a “semi-autonomous
...Keep reading this article on CNET.
