Observations of a science team during an advanced planetary rover prototype field test

Abstract

Robotic exploration of remote planetary environments requires scientists and robots to interact effectively in order to generate accurate scientific conclusions. Optimizing the quality and reliability of these interpretations increases the effectiveness and productivity of missions. During the 2004 Life in the Atacama (LITA) field test, scientists in Pittsburgh, PA interacted with a rover in Chile exploring the Atacama Desert for signs of life. Recordings of the scientists' actions and conversations revealed patterns meriting further study. For example, the stereoscopic panoramic images consumed a generous proportion of communication bandwidth (an average of 67% during week one and 72% during week two). Although the scientists effectively sampled all this data while viewing monocular reduced-resolution panoramas, they did not choose to look at the high-resolution version of every image. Assuming that stereo image pairs and triplets provide redundant information, the scientists studied 52% of the available information at full resolution. However, the information the scientists felt was necessary to form their impressions about the environment, represented only 18% of the total bytes of returned panoramic data. Stereoscopic depth information played an important role in navigating during past Mars missions, but results from this field test suggest that it plays a different role in the search for life. As new data sources are identified that assist in finding signs of life there is a need to balance bandwidth so as to provide enough science information while still being able to safely operate the long-autonomous traverse capable rovers. The development of rovers capable of autonomous navigation and powerful onboard processing may reduce the need for downloading large amounts of three-dimensional data providing more bandwidth for science products.