Autonomous Navigation Enabled on Curiosity
Curiosity Rover Debuts Autonomous Navigation
“NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has used autonomous navigation for the first time, a capability that lets the rover decide for itself how to drive safely on Mars. The capability uses software that engineers adapted to this larger and more complex vehicle from a similar capability used by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, which is also currently active on Mars. Using autonomous navigation, or autonav, Curiosity can analyze images it takes during a drive to calculate a safe driving path. This enables it to proceed safely even beyond the area that the human rover drivers on Earth can evaluate ahead of time.”
Excellent news. The ultimate goal would be rovers that could effectively drive themselves along a route while humans take terms watching, and then observing what it saw through video cameras (preferably over short trips). If something interesting showed up on camera, they could cycle the probe back to that area to go over it again.
Anything that lets you operate more probes with fewer needed staff just for operating it is a good thing.