An intelligent, meteor-seeking robot named Nomad will soon get some human companionship in cold and lonely Antarctica.
Half of a six-person team left Friday on a voyage to the frozen continent to support Nomad's mission, which is to seek out and identify meteorites, and do it on its own.
If Nomad succeeds, similar technology could be picked up by NASA for use on its planetary missions.
"What this vehicle has is quite a bit of intelligence to get into an area and totally search the area to find interesting artifacts."
An independent robot that can autonomously maneuver through difficult terrain and study the composition of rocks and other materials would be a boon to exploration of areas where humans cannot be sent.
The robot, which is about the size of a Volkswagen, has been built and programmed by staff and students from Carnegie Mellon University to safely maneuver the terrain of the Antarctic, identify rocks and calculate, by itself, the likelihood that the rock is a meteorite.
Moving at about 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) per second, Nomad uses a high-resolution digital camera to identify rocks and scan them for characteristic signs of meteorites, such as charred surfaces and a aerodynamic shape.
It then uses two sets of tools to help it decide whether the rock's origins are indigenous or in outer space.
The first tool, a reflection spectrometer, shines light on the rock and analyzes the reflection. That analysis shows which elements make up the rock.
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| The Nomad robot is on a mission to search for meteorites on Antarctica's Elephant Moraine. |
Nomad uses a digital camera, a spectrometer and a metal detector to decide whether a rock came from outer space. |
If the mission succeeds, project scientists hope a robot like Nomad could be used by NASA on a planetary mission. |
Then, Nomad uses its metal detector to sense whether the rock is composed partly of iron, a sure sign that the rock is a meteor.
Nomad's computer processes this data and makes a conclusion on the origin of the rock.
Nomad has been deployed on several missions, but its trip to Antarctica this winter will mark the first time the robot is expected to move and analyze completely on its own.
In a trip to Chile's Atacama Desert in the summer of 1997, only its navigation system was tested.
And in two trips to Antarctica in 1998, the robot was given human support as it scanned the Patriot Hills.
But when Nomad is let loose next month on Antarctica's Elephant Moraine, the support team will keep its distance. Nomad will do its searching on its own.
If the mission succeeds, project scientists hope a robot like Nomad could be used by NASA -- which is supporting the project -- on a planetary mission.
"What planetary robots traditionally do is have a little control intelligence to make sure they don't fall into a crevasse," said Dimi Apostolopoulos, Ph.D., systems scientist for Nomad and scientist at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute. "What this vehicle has is quite a bit of intelligence to get into an area and totally search the area to find interesting artifacts, make observations, and be able to infer from the observations it makes."
Three more people from the support team will leave for Antarctica in about 10 days. The mission is expected to last for three weeks, but harsh Antarctic weather is expected to limit the amount of time the craft can actually perform.
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