ESA Shows Off Quadcopter Landing Concept For Mars Rovers 104
coondoggie writes Taking a page from NASA's rocket powered landing craft from its most recent Mars landing mission, the European Space Agency is showing off a quadcopter that the organization says can steer itself to smoothly lower a rover onto a safe patch of the rocky Martian surface. The ESA said its dropship, known as the StarTiger's Dropter is indeed a customized quadcopter drone that uses a GPS, camera and inertial systems to fly into position, where it then switches to vision-based navigation supplemented by a laser range-finder and barometer to lower and land a rover autonomously.
GPS on Mars (Score:5, Funny)
Really, are you sure it isn't Galileo?
Re:GPS on Mars (Score:5, Funny)
a customized quadcopter drone that uses a GPS, camera and inertial systems to fly into position .....
Yup, hate to break it to you rocket scientists at NASA, but there is a slight flaw in this design for use on Mars.
Re:GPS on Mars (Score:5, Interesting)
a customized quadcopter drone that uses a GPS, camera and inertial systems to fly into position .....
Yup, hate to break it to you rocket scientists at NASA, but there is a slight flaw in this design for use on Mars.
I'd suspect those rocket scientists planned to, oh, I dunno, put GPS satellites into orbit around mars prior to landing the rover?
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ESA, not NASA
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As a proof of concept running a quadcopter is a lot easier, but for an actual Mars landing it wouldn't be too difficult to build one with rockets instead of rotors. Hobbyist quadcopter autopilots will run a wide variety of motors with a few tweaks to parameters, rotors to rockets is a larger step but not beyond the realm of a reasonable software project.
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A quadcopter is are partly steered by torque. I dont think it would be simple to switch from rotors to rockets
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So the smart designer would incorporate the solar panels into the blades so that upon landing when folded up they could serve another purpose. It is all about making the best use of mass.
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MPS maybe, not GPS.
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Umm, Mars is also a globe.
You have the faith of a small child (Score:2)
I sure don't suspect that. Putting up a GPS constellation is no small task. And here on earth there is a significant Earth bound support network that the GPS network interacts with to keep everything working.
Yes, it seems crazy that a space agency could overlook this. But less crazy than putting an entire GPS system in place. I actually think that this is more likely to be a manifestation of extremely poor journalism. But there is not going to be a GPS system in place over Mars before this gizmo ever att
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That would be a cool trick. I think it will be a long long time before we see that.
GPS, and GLONASS have 24 satellites for global coverage. Galileo has 27. Beidou has 10 right now, but has limited coverage. It will have 35 when it's fully operational.
Most (all?) require ground stations to keep them updated, so it isn't just a matter of throwing some satellites up and having GPS on another planet. As I recall, GPS satellite service will degrade to unusable somewhere between 90 to 180 days. [insert obl
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I'd love to see something like that functional. It could really change what we're doing there. quadcopter or quadcopter/fixed wing hybrids, could do really well exploring the surface of Mars. It's not like there's a rush to get anywhere. They could lay out with solar panels extended for weeks to charge, and then fly for miles. It wouldn't be practical for moving lots of equipment, but it could grab samples and bring them back to the rover/base.
They'd need to take into consideration those pesky s
Re:GPS on Mars (Score:5, Informative)
a customized quadcopter drone that uses a GPS, camera and inertial systems to fly into position .....
Yup, hate to break it to you rocket scientists at NASA, but there is a slight flaw in this design for use on Mars.
I hate to break it to you, but ESA is the rocket scientists in Europe, not NASA....
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Well, the up front costs for the Martian GPS system will be high, that is to say, astronomical. May be some maintenance problems as well. Other than that and the near absence of an atmosphere it sounds good to go.
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GPS is just a stand-in for the system they would use on Mars, which would be a much simplified version using existing satellites and the transport vehicle for the lander itself.
The atmosphere in Mars is fine for a quadcopter if designed correctly. How do you think the parachutes on NASA landers work?
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GPS is just a stand-in for the system they would use on Mars, which would be a much simplified version using existing satellites and the transport vehicle for the lander itself.
The atmosphere in Mars is fine for a quadcopter if designed correctly. How do you think the parachutes on NASA landers work?
I'm not sure what you mean by "simpler" system, what would it be? AFAIK it takes signals from 4 GPS satellites to get a fix, I think that it could be done with 3 having knowledge of the approximate position. That's with 3 or 4 satellites with GPS electronics in view at once. This implies that there need to be several more than 3 satellites in the constellation to be certain of having 3 or 4 in the correct position at any time. I don't think that the orbits of multi purpose satellites would be the ones ne
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It isn't about capability, it's about € the ESA can't afford to put up Galileo, l suspect that putting up a global navigation system around Mars would be a bit cost prohibitive for this application.
Part of the problem with deploying a GNS is that you need ground uplink station for reference correction (inertial clock correction and fault detection isn't generally sufficient for good long term accuracy). At least they might have less of a problem with ionospheric propagation delay (Mars still has a sin
European Probes (Score:4, Funny)
Being a European probe, once landed it will open a small cafe serving croissants and excellent espresso.
Re:European Probes (Score:5, Funny)
Being a European probe, once landed it will ...
Moan and bitch about Spirit & Opportunity spying on it, while in turn spying on economically valuable sectors of Spirit & Opportunity.
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Being a European probe, once landed it will ...
Moan and bitch about Spirit & Opportunity spying on it, while in turn spying on economically valuable sectors of Spirit & Opportunity.
More likely it will just overcharge them for coffee when they present dollars instead of Euros.
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We have GPS on Mars? I like the cafe idea, American probes are so anal.
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Or a FUTBOL stadium.
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Being a European probe, once landed it will open a small cafe serving croissants and excellent espresso.
Warning: Probe components designed by different European countries may refuse to communicate with each other.
This is not going to work. (Score:5, Interesting)
Mars has an atmosphere. Barely - atmospheric pressure is 0.006 earth-atmospheres. Maybe 0.01 if the weather is right and at a low enough point. You'd get bugger-all lift from a 'copter, quad or otherwise. Even in the nice one-third G, that thing isn't flying. It's hard enough getting something down by parachute - those rovers have to be built to take a nasty impact, because even with a huge parachute and low gravity they still hit the ground hard.
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They must be planning ahead for the time when terraforming is complete.
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That was my thought also. What's next, eighth ray buoyancy tanks?
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Edgar Rice Burroughs FTW
Came here to see this comment, wasn't disappointed.
Re: This is not going to work. (Score:2, Interesting)
Nor will GPS help much on Mars. It's like this is a thinly veined cover for developing a military drone for dropping materiel into a battle zone. Everything about it seems geared towards terrestrial use.
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A possibility, but a poor cover. If I wished to covertly develop a military supply delivery system - and I wouldn't, because there's nothing really illicit about that to justify such a cover-up - I would think disaster relief a better justification. Think of a truck loaded with a hundred of these things driving as far as it can into an area struck by earthquake, hurricane, or other natural disaster - the drones launch, fly away, seek out survivors, and drop to each one a 'three day survival pack' consisting
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Re:This is not going to work. (Score:4, Informative)
It's ESA, not NASA, and the focus of the work was apparently the vision-based guidance system, not the quadcopter propulsion (which indeed would be absurd on Mars).
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activit... [esa.int]
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He's right though, that thing will drop like a rock. ...aaand apparently it actually is an official release: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activit... [esa.int]
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It's those commie Global Copterists trying to push their socialist sodomy agenda on us hard-working patriotic air creators!
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It does mentione NASA. The first line of the summary:
Taking a page from NASA's rocket powered landing craft from it most recent Mars landing mission, the European Space Agency is ...
So your excuse is that you didn't read the article, and you didn't read the first sentence of the summary to completion. You can't claim that you read the headline, because that doesn't mention NASA.
Horrible Article (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the official press release [esa.int], which states the real goal of the project:
Starting from scratch for the eight-month project, the Dropter team was challenged to produce vision-based navigation and hazard detection and avoidance for the dropship.
The quadcopter was just a COTS stand-in for testing their software.
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Which was just changes the problem to a different domain... diverting the probe is going to be a stone cold bitch. By the time you're a couple of hundred feet up, you're only a few seconds from landing and it'll take quite a bit of energy to divert any significant distance. (Energy == weight.) And that's without pondering how amazing the optics and processing system will have to be.
Interesting work to be sure, but applying it in practice will be even more so.
Re: This is not going to work. (Score:2)
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Mars has lower gravity than the Earth. If it works at Mars pressure and Earth Gravity, it will work better actually on Mars.
That said, I''d say the GP's assertion requires a cite - As far as I know, virtually no "Aero"dynamics-based means of propulsion or lift works on Mars. Any viable copter on Mars would require blades the size of a football field, which leads to a not inconsiderable problem of how you mount mor
Re:This is not going to work. (Score:4, Informative)
Some friends of mine did exactly this as a research project last year.They did some testing at NASA Langley using some of their low pressure testing facilities.
It should be possible in a few years for sure and it may even be possible now. That being said, it's quite possibly the least efficient way to do anything anywhere, especially so on Mars. The rotor blades have to be enormous in order to generate enough lift. They also made some assumptions about materials used that aren't realistic right now, 5 years from now, probably, but not right now.
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Oblig xkcd [xkcd.com].
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Here's a direct link to the citation Munroe uses for what aerodynamics on Mars is like: http://www.x-plane.com/adventures/mars.html [x-plane.com]
Warning: lots of All-Caps.
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Mars has an atmosphere. Barely - atmospheric pressure is 0.006 earth-atmospheres. Maybe 0.01 if the weather is right and at a low enough point. You'd get bugger-all lift from a 'copter, quad or otherwise. Even in the nice one-third G, that thing isn't flying. It's hard enough getting something down by parachute - those rovers have to be built to take a nasty impact, because even with a huge parachute and low gravity they still hit the ground hard.
The R&D is towards the guidance and landing system, the copter part is just a platform.
When Curiosity landed, Skycrake used rocket engines, theres no reason why rockets couldnt be used instead of rotors.
YALC (Score:1)
How many of these does the public have to fund before NASA admits to simply trying to stay employed, for cripe's sake.
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How many of these does the public have to fund before NASA admits
For how many years do you have to go back to school before you understand that ESA != NASA?
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If the ESA will pay for it then I don't really care that much. The idea sounds a little silly given the atmospheric density on Mars, but if they can make something work or can learn and use this knowled
Why a separate rover? (Score:2)
The sky-crane maneuver was designed before the quadcopter design paradigm existed and they were simply trying to safely land a large and heavy science rover. The lower density of the a
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GPS on Mars? (Score:2)
I hope they plan on deploying a dozen or more GPS satellites to Mars before they try and land this thing.
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Though such a Roman->Greek naming scheme might not work so well for Venus...
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What's wrong with Aphrodite?
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Galileo is four syllables.
It's a satellite navigation system currently being deployed.
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Galileo is four syllables.
Yeah, but Galileo was a dude. Dudes get extra syllables.
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Doesn't work well with Apples.
Kilrathi stole yer name (Score:3)
StarTiger's Dropter
What the hell kind of name is that? Is this Wing Commander?
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Yes. Quadcopters are overrated. I remember reading a lot about proposals to make aircraft that can fly in the Martian atmosphere and nearly invariably they had huge wings and lightweight structures. The atmosphere is really low density.
Seven Minutes of Terror (Score:4, Interesting)
If you've never watched "Seven Minutes of Terror," which explains the crazy but successful scheme to lower the Curiousity rover onto Mars, do yourself a favor and go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
It's the best video the U.S. Government has ever produced.
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An audit by the IRS?
Why can't it BE the rover? (Score:2)
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Why can't it BE the rover?
Fuel.
The final system would use rocket engines. Mars's atmosphere is only 1% of Earth's, propellers wouldnt work so well.
Possible, yes, but feasible? (Score:3)
Helicopters work well on Earth for several reasons - first, our oxygen-bearing atmosphere means we don't have to carry our own oxidizer, just fuel, which makes it far more mass-efficient. Then our thick atmosphere means you get a lot more lift for a given amount of airspeed.
I have no doubt that you could get a rotorcraft to work on Mars. It's a question of whether it will work better than alternatives - such as the rockets used by Curiosity. But in essence this will have to be a rocket-powered rotorcraft as well - either rocket-like gas generators, or electric motors would be needed to work in the oxygenless environment, and I don't see electric being feasible in this situation. It then comes down to "is it more efficient to use the fuel+oxidizer to turn a rotor at supersonic speeds, or use it as a rocket?"
I'm no rocket scientist, but it seems to me that the simple extra mass of the rotor is a big strike against it being a good alternative to rockets, never mind the thinner atmosphere.
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Well done everybody (Score:1)
... on completely missing the point. This project is about testing autonomous visual landing site selection and guidance, NOT proposing that quadcopters can fly on Mars. To be fair, the linked article isn't especially clear on that point either.
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... on completely missing the point. This project is about testing autonomous visual landing site selection and guidance, NOT proposing that quadcopters can fly on Mars. To be fair, the linked article isn't especially clear on that point either.
To be fair, the ESA's own site [esa.int] insinuates that this project is a quadcopter for Mars.
"The dramatic conclusion to ESA’s latest StarTiger project: a ‘dropship’ quadcopter steers itself to lower a rover gently onto a safe patch of the rocky martian surface."
Outsource this to Bezos... (Score:2)
air density (Score:2)
Martian air density says any sort of copter is not going to fly.
The highest atmospheric density on Mars is equal to that found 35 km (22 mi) above the Earth's surface.
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Besides, this copter was just a platform for a vision system instead of a serious lander design.
0.74% atmospheric pressure and trace oxygen levels (Score:2)
There's another major problem posed by Mars. 96% of the atmosphere is comprised of CO2 and there is only trace amounts of oxygen. That means not only would you have to carry fuel, but you would need to carry your own oxidizer as
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Earth to give Mars STD (Score:1)
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If it could be done without a major size or mass penalty, this could permit not just a soft landing, but the potential of a hopping or a flying rover.
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