NASA has given the Perseverance rover a powerful new ability to determine its precise location on Mars without waiting for instructions from Earth, effectively giving the six-wheeled rover its own version of GPS.
Unlike Earth, Mars does not have a network of navigation satellites. Instead, it includes robot missions including: patience They have long relied on onboard sensors and cameras, images from orbiting spacecraft, and instructions from mission teams millions of miles away to know exactly where they are.
“To get exact accuracy, humans needed to return to Earth,” she added. “But not anymore.”
After landing Jezero Crater In February 2021, the car-sized Perseverance tracked its location by analyzing geological features in images taken every few feet and estimating the distance traveled by accounting for wheel slippage.
Small errors accumulate over time, and on long drives, their inaccuracies can cause the spacecraft’s position to be uncertain by more than 100 feet (35 meters). NASA said if the spacecraft determines it may be getting too close to dangerous terrain, it may stop early and await clarity from Earth. statement.
“Humans have to tell people, ‘You’re not lost, you’re safe, keep going,'” Verma said in a statement. “We knew that if we addressed this problem, the spacecraft could travel further every day.”
Because Mars is on average about 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) from Earth, communication delays make real-time control impossible, and such directional guidance can take more than a full Martian day.
Now, a new upgrade called Mars Global Localization allows Perseverance to match its panoramic images with onboard orbital topographic maps, calculate its precise position, and continue along its planned route without waiting for Earth-based confirmation.
NASA says the onboard algorithms can perform the comparison in about two minutes and pinpoint the rover’s location to within about 10 inches (25 centimeters) without the assistance of human planners. This feature allows the spacecraft to move pretty farScientists say it will increase the amount of terrain that can be explored and the amount of science that can be performed.
The team began developing the technology in 2023, testing the algorithm against images from 264 previous rover stops. In each case, the software accurately determined the spacecraft’s location, the agency said. The system was successfully used in daily operations in early February and earlier this week.
“We have given the rover new capabilities,” Jeremy Nash, a JPL robotics engineer who led the project under Verma, said in a statement. “This has been an unsolved problem in robotics research for decades, and it’s very exciting to deploy this solution into space for the first time.”
This advancement comes just weeks after NASA announced that Perseverance had been developed. completed the first drive Mars is planned entirely by generative artificial intelligence.
In that test, the AI software analyzed the same imagery and terrain data used by human planners, including imagery from NASA. mars reconnaissance orbiter — Identify hazards such as rocks, steep slopes, and rocky areas and plan a safe route using specified coordinates for the rover to follow.
NASA said that before sending commands to Mars, engineers extensively tested the plan using the rover’s detailed digital twin to ensure it was safe to drive. previous statement.
In fact, scientists say Perseverance’s autonomous navigation capabilities have become so effective at detecting and avoiding obstacles that its range is limited not by hazard avoidance, but by the uncertainty of its precise location.
Such technology could usher in a new era of faster, more autonomous exploration, not just on Mars but on other worlds, Verma said in a statement.
“It could potentially be used in almost any other spacecraft that travels at high speeds and long distances.”