Artificial intelligence transported the rover on Mars more than 300 million kilometers away

Artificial intelligence planned the daily routes of the rover traveling on Mars for a couple of days in early December. The ATV therefore operated independently, without direct control.

The commands of the artificial intelligence were transferred from Southern California more than 300 million kilometers away to Mars. There the Mars rover The perseverance the control unit received them.

After that, humans did not interfere with the routes of the six-wheeled ATV.

“Independent technologies will become more common as the distance from Earth increases,” says NASA’s new director Jared Isaacman in JPL’s announcement.

I’ll try carried out by the US Space Administration’s NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), says the NASA announcement. JPL is responsible for Perseverance’s maneuvers on Mars.

In the experiment, artificial intelligence handled Perseverance’s 1,707 and 1,709 working days on the surface of Mars.

On December 8, Perseverance drove 210 meters around the Jezero crater with the help of waypoints set by artificial intelligence.

Two days later, the distance was 246 meters. At that time, on December 10, Mars was about 361 million kilometers from Earth.

Nasa posted about this 2.5 hour drive the video:

Artificial intelligence implemented by JPL’s operations center with an artificial intelligence model from the Anthropic company named Claude.

JPL and researchers went through more than 500,000 commands. Only then were they sent to Mars.

Just to be sure, JPL’s virtual copy of the rover, i.e. Perseverance’s “digital twin”, also processed the drive commands in advance.

The artificial intelligence used the database compiled by JPL to plan the route. People have also used it to plan Perseverance quests.

Images taken by satellites orbiting Mars are used to help plan the stage. They tell, for example, about the terrain’s bedrock and sand dunes.

Animation by JPL showhow driving progresses with the help of artificial intelligence:

After being guided by artificial intelligence, Perseverance’s odometer read 42.3 kilometers on December 11.

“Sometimes smart tools help an ATV to survive kilometers of riding”, reflects on future ATV riders Vandi Verma.

Verma is a space robotics expert at JPL who works on the Perseverance design team.

Until now, Perseverance has not been able to be controlled in real time.

The perseverance daily routines have always been carried out by a person or people for almost five years. They are from the team at JPL that looks after Perseverance.

At JPL, the waypoints that the rover will aim for during the day on Mars have been created. There is a lot of data to help with navigation, such as terrain maps and photos.

Points and stages on the surface of Mars are usually no more than a hundred meters apart. When the tails are short, they are safe.

The ATV has always stopped after the day’s work and waited for new instructions.

The distance to Mars is so great from Earth that Perseverance has not been able to be controlled in real time until now.

The command’s journey to Mars takes an average of 12–13 minutes even at the speed of light, sometimes less depending on the distance to Mars, but a maximum of 22 minutes.

A small one the car-sized Perseverance landed on Mars in late February 2021.

The rover has now been in the sky for almost five years on Mars in the Jezero crater area. It has been looking for signs of water and primitive life.

Perseverance has also drilled samples of Martian soil and flown a mini-copter in the gas ring.

The journey continues. Perseverance equipment and tires may take years.