In an article posted today at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE) Spectrum magazine web site, Prachi Patel reports about
work at space robotics company Astrobotic Technology on precision
navigation technology for landing on the Moon and then driving on it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prachi Patel, IEEE
In the coming decades, human forays to the moon will rely heavily on robotic landers, rovers, and drones. Horchler leads a team whose aim is ensuring those robotic vessels—including Astrobotic’s own Peregrine lander—can perform at least as well as Armstrong did.
Astrobotic’s precision-navigation technology will let both uncrewed and crewed landers touch down exactly where they should, so a future Armstrong won’t have to strong-arm her landing vessel’s controls. Once they’re safely on the surface, robots like Astrobotic’s will explore the moon’s geology, scout out sites for future lunar bases, and carry equipment and material destined for those bases, Horchler says.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Prachi Patel, IEEE
On the moon, there is no GPS, compass-enabling magnetic field, or high-resolution maps for a lunar craft to use to figure out where it is and where it’s going. Any craft will also be limited in the computing, power, and sensors it can carry. Navigating on the moon is more like the wayfinding of the ancient Polynesians, who studied the stars and ocean currents to track their boats’ trajectory, location, and direction.
A spacecraft’s wayfinders are inertial measurement units that use gyroscopes and accelerometers to calculate attitude, velocity, and direction from a fixed starting point. These systems extrapolate from previous estimates, so errors accumulate over time. “Your knowledge of where you are gets fuzzier and fuzzier as you fly forward,” Horchler says. “Our system collapses that fuzziness down to a known point.”
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Article here :-
https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/...ake-themselves