NASA talks up Perseverance Mars rover's self-driving rock-avoiding abilities
As Perseverance begins to roll its way around Mars, NASA engineers are gradually allowing the rover to drive autonomously, to a degree, using computer algorithms running on a navigation computer.
The six-wheeled, SUV-sized science lab primarily relies on humans to tell it where to go and how to get there. Scientists on Earth don VR goggles to study the Martian landscape snapped by the rover’s cameras, and decide which path the machine should take. These navigation instructions are then beamed to Perseverance to carry out; the communications delay between the two planets rules out interactive real-time control, so the rover is left to move as ordered and report back.
That said, Perseverance is able to more and more use its own electronic initiative. It has an AutoNav system – a suite of software tools – that as NASA put it "makes 3D maps of the terrain ahead, identifies hazards, and plans a route around any obstacles without additional direction from controllers back on Earth."
“We have a capability called ‘thinking while driving,’” said Vandi Verma, a senior engineer who helps drive Perseverance. “The rover is thinking about the autonomous drive while its wheels are turning.”
