Project and Workshop Objectives

1
Project and Workshop Objectives

• Life in the Atacama WorkshopJuly 28, 2003 at
  845
• Nathalie Cabrol/David WettergreenThe Robotics
  InstituteCarnegie Mellon University

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Atacama Desert

• Northern Chile between the Pacific and the Andes
• Driest desert on Earth
• No measurable rain for centuries in some regions
  but
• Fog from the Pacific
• Runoff from the Andes
• Analogous to Mars
• Arid, High UV, Soil Oxidants

3
Coastal Range

• Parallels the Pacific coast
• Camanchacas, coastal fog, penetrate inland
• Desiccation-tolerant organisms detected Chong

4
Interior Desert

• Altiplano rises from Coastal Range (700m) to
  the Andes (4000m)
• Moisture blocked byPacific high pressureand
  Andes
• No rain
• Dew possible intoward coast
• Most lifeless area on Earth?
• Possible absolute desert evidenced by the absence
  of biogenic organic molecules?

Hubble
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Scientific Investigation

• The biodiversity and distribution of habitats in
  Atacama subregions are not yet measured. Where
  does life survive and where does it not?

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Science Objectives

• Seek Life
• Detect life unambiguously
• Characterize biota surviving in the Atacama
• Measure spatial variability of biodiversity
• Detect environmental boundary conditions of
  microorganic life
• Search for structural fossils

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Science Objectives

• Seek Life
• Understand Habitat
• Characterize the physical environment
• Examine current biological oases and microorganic
  communities
• Determine physical/environmental conditions of
  identified past and current habitats
• Measure spatial diversity and types of habitats
  for microorganic life

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Science Objectives

• Seek Life
• Understand Habitat
• Make Relevant Measurements
• Integrate and field-test instruments that form an
  appropriate science payload
• Make measurements that motivate the exploration
  of analogous environments for life on Mars
• Develop procedure for conducting
  instrument-guided robotic surveys

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Technology Objectives

• Navigate Over the Horizon
• Navigate beyond the robot field-of-view (gt1km)
• Model the environment and detect obstacles at
  necessary scales
• Localize based on odometry, sun position, and
  local feature/global landmark tracking (but not
  artificial satellites)
• Register observations to orbital datasets and
  limit position error to 5 of distance traveled

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Technology Objectives

• Navigate Over the Horizon
• Use Resources Efficiently
• Enable onboard, resource-limited traverse
  planning and sequence execution to address
• Power Solar and battery power and overnight
  hibernation
• Communication Cycles, delay, and data volume
• Science Instrument use and sampling requests

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Technology Objectives

• Navigate Over the Horizon
• Use Resources Efficiently
• Advance Autonomy and Self-Awareness
• Establish variable rover autonomy and effective
  remote investigation (telescience) over
  low-bandwidth, long-latency communication links
• Develop rover self-awareness, monitoring hardware
  and software elements, for fault detection and
  recovery
• Achieve multi-day unattended operation and
  greater than 1 km traverse per command cycle

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Technology Objectives

• Navigate Over the Horizon
• Use Resources Efficiently
• Advance Autonomy and Self-Awareness
• Create Robotic Astrobiologist

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Robotic Astrobiologist

• Our concept of operations is that planetary
  astrobiology requires extensive mobility
• Tens of kilometers to measure biodiversity
• Long-distance mobilityis the design driver
  forrover and software
• Autonomy is an implicitrequirement in a
  resource-poor situation

• Factors motivating autonomy
• Mission duration
• Operations costs
• Instrument placement and operation
• Command complexity
• Comm. bandwidth and data volume

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Robotic Geologist

• Great rover for a different mission
• Fine resolution investigation with precise
  deployment of multiple instruments
• Not broad survey and reconnaissance
• Autonomy minimized

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Expected Significance
First robotic discovery of life?
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Workshop Objectives

• Meet the entire project team
• Review the current state of our research
• Analyze the first field investigation
• Plan the work of the coming year
• Formulate the second field investigation

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Workshop Philosophy

• Expect more questions than answers
• Make conclusions whenever possible
• Look for implications in available information
• Identify direction and priorities

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Workshop Agenda