Oct 23
3D Vision Company TYZX Partners with NASA Ames to Help Rovers ‘See’
Stereo Vision System To Enhance Unmanned Mobile Robot’s Ability To Navigate Martian and Lunar Terrain. MENLO PARK, Calif., Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ — TYZX, Inc., the 3D vision technology company, today announced that it is working with the National Aerospace and Science Administration (NASA) to enhance navigation and obstacle avoidance capabilities of mobile robotic test platforms with faster stereo vision processing targets.
TYZX is working with NASA Ames Research Center’s Intelligent Robotics Group and their K10 rover, a mobile robot with four-wheel drive and four-wheel steering. The K10 is being used to conduct geophysical site surveys of lunar and Martian analog sites on Earth, and going forward, such surveys will focus on resource prospecting, including subsurface structure mapping and water detection with a ground-penetrating radar, as well as charting terrain topography with stereo vision and 3D lidar.
“Working with TYZX, NASA hopes to achieve faster stereo vision processing and enhanced surface-modeling capabilities, both directly applicable to future Mars missions,” said Lisa Lockyer, chief of the Technology Partnerships Office at NASA Ames. “This partnership is an excellent example of what NASA’s Space Act authority is designed to achieve: technology transfer in both directions that enhances NASA missions, improves the quality of life on Earth, and leverages taxpayer dollars.”
One of the key challenges in mobile robot navigation is determining which areas of the local environment are topographically safe for driving. In particular, the robot has to identify regions that are hazardous to traverse due to slope, obstacles, depressions, etc. Thus, successful site-surveying endeavors are contingent on NASA’s ability to analyze traversability, both for local obstacle avoidance and global path planning.
More at PRNewsWire
June 26th, 2008 at 7:19 PM
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