----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 1:23 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: NASA, CARNEGIE MELLON MAKE PERSONAL ROBOTS POSSIBLE Michael Mewhinney Dec. 22, 2003
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Phone: 650/604-3937 or 650/604-9000
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Anne Watzman
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
Phone: 412/268-3830
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RELEASE: 03-106AR
NASA, CARNEGIE MELLON MAKE PERSONAL ROBOTS POSSIBLE
As NASA's twin robot geologists Spirit and Opportunity prepare to
land on Mars in January, a cadre of 20 smart rovers will be deployed
at some of the nation's most prestigious science museums to let
visitors experience the thrill of exploring the red planet.
Developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University with support
from NASA and Intel Corp., the Personal Exploration Rovers (PERs)
will reside in "Mars yards," specially designed to mimic martian
terrain at the new visitor center at NASA Ames Research Center,
Moffett Field, Calif. The new rovers also will be deployed in Mars
yards at the San Francisco Exploratorium; the Smithsonian's Air and
Space Museum in Washington and its new Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles
International Airport; and the National Science Center in Augusta,
Ga. The first exhibit will open at NASA Ames in late December. The
others will follow between January first and Jan. 24, 2004.
"With the Personal Exploration Rover, students can learn how robots
interact with the world and see for themselves how the future might
look as we have more and more robots helping us in our everyday
life," said G. Scott Hubbard, director of NASA Ames Research Center.
"Our goal is to excite and inspire kids about science and technology
and educate people about the role of rovers and rover autonomy in
doing space science," said project director Illah Nourbakhsh,
associate professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon's School of
Computer Science. "We want people to understand why it's important
for the rovers to be smart."
"The Personal Exploration Rover is part of a larger project to
develop low-cost robotic devices that can be used in education,
science museums and the home," said Daniel Clancy, director of
information sciences and technology at NASA Ames. "In future holiday
seasons, you will be able to bring one of these home for your kids.
The robot will be able to move around your house, take pictures,
interact with your dog, and do other tasks. It's really about the
whole creative process and exploring how you can program a device to
do interesting tasks," he added.
The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission is part of NASA's Mars
Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the
red planet. The current mission is to search for clues to past water
activity on Mars. The spacecraft are targeted to appropriate sites on
opposite sides of the planet. The rovers they carry will drive to
promising locations to perform on-site geological investigations over
the course of their 90-day mission.
While Spirit and Opportunity are looking for water history, museum
visitors interacting with the PERs will be able to search the Mars
yards' rocky landscapes for organo-fluorescent evidence of life.
While each museum's exhibit is unique, they all contain one or more
Mars yards populated by rovers. The identical rovers are 1.2 feet
tall, weigh 10 pounds and can move 1.6 inches per second. They have
mobility systems similar to those of Spirit and Opportunity.
Visiting 'mission scientists' will access the PERs through a kiosk,
and then partner with a rover as it moves through the yard, scanning
rocks and soil to find signs of life. The rovers are equipped with
cameras mounted on a custom-designed head that can create a panoramic
or 360-degree image. It also can detect obstacles using an optical
rangefinder.
Carnegie Mellon and NASA researchers have designed educational
materials and ongoing support for the six-month-long exhibits that
feature the rovers. "The gender gap closes when you use robots,"
Nourbakhsh said.
The PER project is funded as part of a four-year grant from NASA to
develop educational robots. It is supported through the NASA Ames
Intelligent Systems Program and Intel. The PERs are powered by Intel
� Xscale � technology using the Intel � PXA255 processors, which
provide high system performance and low power consumption. The
rovers run the Linux operating system and are programmed in Java.
NASA Television will broadcast a video file including animation,
interviews and b-roll footage of the Personal Exploration Rover on
Monday, Dec. 22, at 9 a.m., 12 noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. PST. NASA
Television is available on AMC 9 Transponder 9C, 85 degrees West
Longitude, vertical polarization downlink frequency 3880 MHZ, with
audio at 6.8 MHZ. The NASA TV broadcast schedule is available at:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/
For more information about Carnegie Mellon's personal rover project, see:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~personalrover/PER/
For more information about NASA's Mars Exploration project, see:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer
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