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Space Science

Hyperion Rover, 1 km On One Command 206

Posted by Hemos from the planning-ahead dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Carnegie Mellon's next generation robot just finished its Chilean expedition and achieved a new planetary exploration benchmark, including being the first autonomous rover to cover 1 km on a single command. The other milestones from the Atacama Desert, Chile--the driest place on the planet--centered on over-the-horizon stereo navigation, sun-tracking for efficient solar panel pointing, and fault recovery. CMU shows pictures of the robot, called Hyperion, in action. One of its prime objectives was to plot courses that avoid shade, by finding the position of virtually everything in the solar system."
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Hyperion Rover, 1 km On One Command More

Hyperion Rover, 1 km On One Command

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  • It has to What Now? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jonsey ( 593310 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @10:59AM (#6550806) Journal
    One of it's primary goals is to avoid shady paths by knowing the location of everything in the solar system?

    I mean, I've heard of over-engineered. But really folks? : ) That's Scalability.
    • After looking at the pictures, the avoiding-shadows-part doesn't seem that impressive any more.. :)

    • Re:It has to What Now? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:26AM (#6551045)
      Yup, the same statement struck me as rather absurd too. No only would the stuff you track be meaningless, but say, for example you were the little robot that could exploring Mars and you calculated that Earth was about to eclipse the sun (not that it could be much of an eclipse from Mars' view, but you must be tracking these things for some reason). What the heck can the rover do? It's not like it's going to move to avoid the eclipse!

      And yes, I read the link, it says nothing about this. Perhaps submissions by anonymous deserve a little more editing.

      • It could go into a power saving mode until the eclipse has passed. If power isn't being generated after the eclipse has passed, it then could begin trying to figure what the heck happened. It can be used for any number of intelligent diagnostic and power saving modes. Also, if it knows all valid times that its cells should be getting power, it can figure out if it navigated into shade or if it's one of the other known events. If it's a known event, it may be able to wait it out. If it's an unknown even

    • Only thing I could think of... (Score:5, Funny)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:29AM (#6551082)
      was that it was trying to avid solar occlusions by other planets and moons!

      "Response from Hyperion: Cannot execute command, busy navigating 4000km to east to avoid total solar eclipse in 2004".
      • The though I had was the rover busy running at 900mph in attempt to avoid the night.

        Scary...

    • Re:It has to What Now? (Score:5, Informative)

      by jim3e8 ( 458859 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:40AM (#6551164) Homepage
      The article says that the rover is equipped with software that knows the position of everything in the solar system. But it doesn't check them all against each other. It simply means that, given any planet, it will know the position of that planet and the sun, and can therefore find the sun's position in the sky. They did this so it can be sent to any planet, not limited to just one.

      The submitter was a little overzealous in assuming it checks the position of everything in the solar system for overlap.
    • One of its prime objectives was to plot courses that avoid shade

      I hope they find it another way to navigate before they send it out to rescue lost hikers in Death Valley, etc..

      - "Oh, thank God you found me, RoboSaviour!"
      - "YES MY SECOND PRIME DIRECTIVE IS TO HELP HUMANKIND. DO NOT FEAR I WILL CARRY YOU TO A HOSPITAL ESTIMATED TIME TO ARRIVAL 62 HOURS"

      - "Wait, second directive? And, uh, wouldn't it be safer for us to travel at night?"
      - "HERE WE GO, SIR. ESTIMATED ARRIVAL CONDITION: TENDER, EXTRA-CRISP

  • That's impressive (Score:5, Funny)

    by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Monday July 28, 2003 @10:59AM (#6550811) Homepage Journal
    It all depends, however, on whether it really was on purpose....

  • Everything? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:00AM (#6550823)
    "...by finding the position of virtually everything in the solar system."

    Even...Uranus?

    • Re:Everything? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Sri Lumpa ( 147664 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:46AM (#6551208) Homepage
      "...by finding the position of virtually everything in the solar system."

      "Even...Uranus?"

      Don't worry, it is programmed to avoid shade so it won't go where the Sun doesn't shine.

      Now if it could find the position of my keys in the morning that would be nice (I'm almost certain that they are in the solar system so it shouldn't be a problem).
      • > > "Even...Uranus?"
        >
        > Don't worry, it is programmed to avoid shade so it won't go where the Sun doesn't shine.

        "And how does this help me?"
        - The Goatse Guy.

        • > > > "Even...Uranus?"

          > > Don't worry, it is programmed to avoid shade so it won't go where the Sun doesn't shine.

          > "And how does this help me?"
          > - The Goatse Guy.

          It helps you because the sun shines there for you.

  • Stop mixing apples and oranges! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:02AM (#6550834)


    Hyperion Rover, 1 km On One Command

    Posted by Hemos on Monday July 28, @10:56AM
    from the planning-ahead dept.
    An anonymous reader writes "Carnegie Mellon's next generation robot just finished its Chilean expedition and achieved a new planetary exploration benchmark, including being the first autonomous rover to cover 1 km on a single command. The other milestones from the Atacama Desert, Chile--the driest place on the planet--centered on over-the-horizon stereo navigation, sun-tracking for efficient solar panel pointing, and fault recovery. CMU shows pictures of the robot, called Hyperion, in action. One of its prime objectives was to plot courses that avoid shade, by finding the position of virtually everything in the solar system."

    Shouldn't that be kilometerstones?

  • Easy to beat (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:03AM (#6550845)
    Park a boat off of someplace deep. Have your AIBO walk the plank. Depending on where you try this, you should be able to get much more than 1km on a single command.
    • I've got a "robot" that can go 1km on its own in the desert. It's called CRUSE CONTROL! It came with my car. I push it and the car just takes off on it's own! I imagine it could make it 1km in the freakin middle of the desert before it hit something/ran out of gas.

  • Yes, but.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Can it find a decent pan-galactic gargle blaster?
  • Pssh, we've had automated rover technology since, what, 1979? [bu.edu]

    This 'new' model doesn't even have a "Photon" Cannon! [bu.edu]

  • Not the driest place on Earth (Score:5, Informative)

    by haz-mat ( 8531 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:05AM (#6550864)
    It is a widely held misconception that the Atacam desert in Chile is the driest place on Earth, in fact the driest place on Earth is in the center of Antartica where there has been no percipitation in over 10,000 years.
    • Antarctica is only the driest place on Earth if you go by annual rainfall. The Atacam desert is the driest place on earth counting humidity. Besides, Last time i checked, Antarctica was covered in snow, which if I'm not mistaken is ice, which I'm quite sure is nothing more than frozen water.
    • I can find far more well qualified statements with far more substantiation than yours that says otherwise.

      Evidence? It doesn't take long to find support both ways, but the numbers seem to fall on the side of Chile, because percipitation DOES happen in the central regions of Antartica, but its always frozen, and always blown away before it can be measured.

      I'm not sure I'd agree that is the same as "no percipitation".
    • It is a widely held misconception that the Atacam desert in Chile is the driest place on Earth, in fact the driest place on Earth is in the center of Antartica where there has been no percipitation in over 10,000 years.

      It is a narrowly held misconception that ice is dry.

      (Apologies for the cheap laugh. Cool trivia tidbit, that...)

      • The statement i made was regarding percipitation, regardless of what is on the ground, central Antartica has been without rainfall longer than the Atacama Desert, hence it is the driest place on earth by my statement.

    • Re:Not the driest place on Earth (Score:5, Informative)

      by haz-mat ( 8531 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:34AM (#6551117)
      Evidence [flex.net] for those who disbelieve:
      One interior region of the Antarctic is known as The Dry Valleys. These valleys have not seen rainfall in over two million years. With the exception of one valley, whose lakes are briefly filled with water by inland flowing rivers during the summer, the Dry Valleys contain no moisture (water, ice, or snow).
      Please see the following as well:
      http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~owen/MD2001/ANTAR CTIC/UM Handout.Info.html

    • hmmm... I don't know. Do you have any numbers on precipitation in the center of the pacific ocean? I don't recall seeing any rain there either. But seriously... no precipitation for 10,000 years? It's a) nice to know somebody's been keeping track *that long* and b) it's kinda weird to see a place made mostly of *ice* and covered with *snow* running for "dry". :)

      And on a side note, the Atacama desert is beautiful when it rains. Lots of really hardy seeds live in the desert, and when it rains the desert blo

  • cool ! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jacquesm ( 154384 ) <j@NoSpam.ww.com> on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:06AM (#6550869) Homepage
    This is really cool... but other than that the general state of robotics is more and more hampered by legalities, such as liability insurance for the 'owner/operator' of any kind of robot.

    It's funny how if you look back at the turn of the century there was no legal barrier to try out new technological stuff, but just try to imagine the then inventors of automobiles selling their first rickety inventions in todays unbelievably hostile legal climate. The whole technological and transportation revolution would simply not have happened

    That's why we see robots for use on other planets, but we'll probably not see them on this one (unless of course we ship all the lawyers to some other planet first).

    • Re:cool ! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Psiren ( 6145 )
      That's why we see robots for use on other planets, but we'll probably not see them on this one (unless of course we ship all the lawyers to some other planet first).

      Does is have to be a planet, or can we aim it at any stellar body [about.com]?

      • as long as it is outside of the range of fax/telephone machines I think we'd be safe, so almost any 'heavenly body' would do. Then we can finally get on with this terrible business called innovation.

        Consider this: an American corporation came up with a pretty good idea for a low cost windmill but because they can not get product liability insurance (pretty much a must in todays climate) the product got axed. Makes you weep.

    • (unless of course we ship all the lawyers to some other planet first)

      Ok, I dont see this as a major stumbling block, nor do I know of any human beings who would object too much.

      "Get Moose and Squirrel!"
    • It's funny how if you look back at the turn of the century there was no legal barrier to try out new technological stuff, but just try to imagine the then inventors of automobiles selling their first rickety inventions in todays unbelievably hostile legal climate. The whole technological and transportation revolution would simply not have happened

      With modern design tools, such as CAD/CAM and computerized milling machines, there is almost no excuse for building anything rickety or unproven. Some time ago

      • Is it your premise that their negligence in the vehicles construction was acceptable? Will it be ok when Sam the Robot impales little Cindy on a meat hook becaus ethe programs mixed up inches and cm? (or cm and mm?) Or didn't account for O-ring britleness in the meat locker?

        What the hell is little Cindy doing in a meat locker?

      • Re:cool ! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jacquesm ( 154384 ) <j@NoSpam.ww.com> on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:49AM (#6551235) Homepage
        no, my premise is that it is no longer possible for smaller companies to bring stuff to market because the first (even failed) lawsuit will probably put them out of business, and because insurance companies will not cover product related liability at a price that will make the product still affordable because of the absolutely ridiculous amounts that are routinely awarded in product liability cases.

        Around the turn of the century people accepted that new technologies and their development incurred a certain amount of risk taking on the part of the public, nowadays we expect to be absolutely safe from the cradle to the grave.

        Lawyers have heavily capitalized on this (especially in the US) with all kinds of bogus lawsuits about product 'failures' (you probably know the various examples as well as I do.)

        This is keeping a whole pile of potentially interesting devices of the market or from being developed at all because the would be developers feel that actually selling their work would expose them to all kinds of harm (especially if they are somewhat successful).

        The 'I'll sue you' attitude is becoming more and more widespread and is having an ever stifling effect on development.

        The only way we are going to go forward is by making mistakes (accidents) and taking risk, not by taking a risk, getting into an accident and then to sue left right and center just to either make a buck or to soothe some inner child that feels wronged.

        Large corporations see the new legal culture as a new form of tax, smaller corporations simply go under (or never even get off the ground).

        It's evident that robotic technology will initially at least lead to all kinds of exposure to risk, especially if we let the devices loose in our urban jungles. But if we do not then we'll never learn what to fix, and the development will be slowed down to the point where you'll be hard put to mark any progress at all since a device will have to be absolutely bullet proofed before it can be sold.

        • While I agree that nuisance lawsuits are out of control (My personal favorite were the Audi's that supposedly had brake failures simultaneously with their gas pedals being fully engaged, but then worked fine five minutes later), the situation is not as bad as you imply. Take the current subject of robots. They are already penetrating our society. There are robotic lawn mowers, floor sweepers, fench fry cookers, dogs, etc. Just because we dont have a prehistoric C3PO wandering about muttering "Kill all huma
          • What will happen - and I hope I'm wrong about this, but I think I'm not - is that *ANY* accident involving robotic technology will *ALLWAYS* be taken to court simply because it is possible, and because the potential 'win' for the grieved party will be enormous.

            So, we will have a near perfect robotic driver, and yet it will not be marketed simply because the first accident by a 'grieved' party will be able to claim 'it's your robot that did it', and the companies insurance company will be forced to pay thro
            • Robotic technology is going to be a sitting duck for this kind of lawsuit, since it has one little problem, there is nobody to give evidence for the robot, your word against the robots, who do we believe

              I see it the other way. The robot driver will have a black box, it will say object A was detected traveling at 45mph at a vector that corresponds to the parking lot entrance, I applied max braking force (proven to be 20% more effective than a human could be). The other driver will so no, I came to a compl

  • Think this thing has some phatty hydrolics?

    http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/atacama/gallery/03Robo t/ 03Robot-Pages/Image2.html

  • Impressive. (Score:5, Funny)

    by rde ( 17364 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:07AM (#6550882)
    Robotic considerations in addition to instrument integration include platform configuration, planetary-relevant localization, complex obstacle negotiation, over-the-horizon navigation, and power-cognizant activity planning.

    We're looking for a manager at the moment with a lot of those skills.

    But seriously, folks. This is quite cool. Its capabilities at the moment seem to surpass by far those of the mars bots that are currently wending their way through space. Am I missing something, though, or have most of those experiments nothing to do with astrobiology? Not a cavil, just wondering.

  • Perfect... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <be@@@eclec...tk> on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:08AM (#6550891) Homepage Journal
    I mean lets face it the smarter robots get the more we advance as a race. If we can understand the minds we program to be able to see the logic or logical answer then we better start to understand ourselves.

    But the problem being it begins to raise questions about the future, if we model a machine after ourselves so much will it be our demise? Science fiction has a way of blowing things out of proportion. When we first started seeing atomic weapons there was a fear we'd destroy the world over and over again, but we haven't yet.

    I think the more we learn to understand ourselves the closer we are to advancing the human race to the next level of existance.

    "Forget about exploring space, we still don't have the slightest clue about our own bodies".

    • "Forget about exploring space, we still don't have the slightest clue about our own bodies". Alright, I think we'll let you hike up to the observatory to tell the astronomers that.
  • After looking at all those pictures, I can certainly see how difficult it would have been for this 'bot to avoid shade. Sheesh.
  • >>CMU shows pictures of the robot, called Hyperion, in action.

    Colin McRae eat your heart out.

  • Position tracking (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually tracking the position of the sun, moons and the planet it's on and it's own position on the planet (or moon) can be very usefull. If that data is interpreted intelligently, the rover could identify locations that have permanent shade and avoid those. Likewise it could figure out if a location is currently shaded, but won't be in a couple of hours, and decide to venture into that shaded environment. Or it could not go into a location currently under a blistering(sp?) sun knowing that this locatio

  • Stereo navigation? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:20AM (#6551005)
    "over-the-horizon stereo navigation"

    That's like when you can hear boy racers in their Escorts before you can see them, right?
  • Left;Forward 2m;Right;Forward 10m;Left;Forward 10m;left;For.......

  • Tommy the Turtle can already do this! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    FD 1000
  • Must be pretty easy to do that in a wide open desert.
  • Why did they have to go all the way to Chile to test this? Couldn't they do it in Death Valley? I just wonder if they really needed to go there or if they just wanted an excuse to go to the driest place on earth?

    • I just wonder if they really needed to go there or if they just wanted an excuse to go to the driest place on earth?

      Then why didn't they just go to Utah?

  • Scary next-gen (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dirk Pitt ( 90561 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:25AM (#6551042) Homepage
    The successor of the 'Hyperion', naturally, will be 'The Shrike':

    Shrike Rover, 1k Slaughtered On One Command

  • I don't quite understand all the fuss about beeing able to drive for a km without anyone to drive it. Automatic farm equipment is already in existance, and I think it is way harder to run a tractor in a wet, muddy field than drivin this bot on a relatively flat and dry surface.

    The developers probably have fun, though :)

    My lego mindstorms have been running around in my appartment for a while now, and I haven't given it an instruction for weeks (besides changing batteries and turning it on)

  • Is it up to the DARPA challenge? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Equuleus42 ( 723 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:29AM (#6551080) Homepage
    A while back there was a story on Slashdot [slashdot.org] about a $1M prize to the first group who could design a robot to autonomously travel from LA to Las Vegas... From the sounds of it, this might be a good candidate for the challenge!
  • Fwd 1000 Go

    For a little flare, have it fire once halfway there.

    And I don't even need to avoid shadows!

    Of course, I am limited to I-70 in Kansas and the thing keeps getting squashed by semi-trucks. That's the only reason they beat me to the record.

  • Get One For Yourself! (Score:5, Funny)

    by notcreative ( 623238 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @11:33AM (#6551111) Journal
    Many of you read the article and wondered how you could get one of these to play with. I figured out a quick "do-it-yourself" solution....
    • Fly to Chile
    • Go to the Atacama desert
    • Hide behind a dune (bring water)
    • Wait for rover to trundle by
    • Take the rover and run
    • Possession is .9 of the law
    I call this the "Sandpeople Technique."
  • Atacama Desert, Chile--the driest place on the planet

    Dry Valleys, Antarctica, probably beat it by several hundreds of thousands years without any kind of water. (be it snow, ground water or air humidity)
  • *Only does 0.4km per command in urban areas. Your mileage may vary.
  • "over-the-horizon stereo navigation"? I can do this any time I want... just listen for my daughter's stereo and I can tell where home is from miles away.
  • That's so NASA. NASA would issue a press release claiming they invented the wheel if they thought they could get away with it.

    Autonomous ground vehicles have traversed more than a kilometer on a single command before. Several of CMU's Navlab vehicles have done that. The military "Demo III" robot vehicles have done that. In rougher terrain, too.

    Hyperion is a neat little machine, but it's not that exotic. It doesn't do "over the horizon stereo navigation". Its stereo system has a useful range of abo

  • DARPA Grand Challenge - Join Team Overbot (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @12:50PM (#6551752) Homepage
    Team Overbot [overbot.com] is developing an autonomous robot vehicle for entry in the DARPA Grand Challenge. [darpa.mil] 200 miles through the desert in 10 hours - no driver. $1,000,000 prize.

    We have to do a lot better than Hyperion did. 300km, not one. And faster.

    We're looking for a few good people. Hard work, no pay, some risk, a chance for a fraction of the prize. See our current openings. [overbot.com]

    We're in Silicon Valley. We have funding, a shop in an industrial park in Redwood City, a vehicle under construction, and six people. We need about six more.

    • I'd jump in there if it weren't for two minor details: 2,000 miles away and the need to eat.
    • We're looking for a few good people. Hard work, no pay, some risk, a chance for a fraction of the prize. See our current openings.

      From your website:

      "Help build America's Robot Army!"

      So, let's get this straight... you're trying to create a robot that's going to be used in miliary applications to kill people. The army will no longer need to send thinking humans into battle, it can just send these, preprogrammed with specific targets, and a path to get there. It won't need human intervention to fire beca
  • "One of its prime objectives was to plot courses that avoid shade"

    Um, to my knowledge there isn't a single tree in that desert. How do they know it was successful? I am sure they will claim a 100% success, just as I can claim a 100% success when testing my coffee cup's new "don't move" feature. Yep, it worked. It's right where I left it.

  • Something like this could find my missing socks while I am at work. Finally, something with direct earthly benefits from NASA. For a little extra maybe it will toss AOL disks and empty pizza containers for ya also.
  • And in other news; $500 million mission scrapped due to 4 broken spokes costing approxiamately 50 cents each.
  • One more step in the process...

    Soon enough, we will be bowing to the robot overlords! BOW BEFORE YOUR MASTER!

  • Johnny 1? (Score:2, Funny)

    by celerityfm ( 181760 )
    Is is just me, or does this thing bear a strong resemblance [cmu.edu] to our good friend Johnny 5 [jeffbots.com] from the movie Short Circuit [imdb.com]?

    Now I understand why such a thing would go as to track "the position of virtually everything in the solar system," input Stephanie!
  • That product just came out and already they're adding ground effects.

    http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/atacama/gallery/03Robo t/ 03Robot-Pages/Image2.html
  • ...think that this thing was only a little bigger than a remote control car until they saw this [cmu.edu] photo?

    Man, that's way bigger than I thought it was... amazing what your brain can do when it has no near objects to compare something to.

  • I can't wait for one of these to be "kidnapped" (preferably with telemetry intact to allow easy retrieval and a good laugh all round) while wandering about in some desert or another.

    Q.

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