Rover computers

The main objectives of the rover are to provide:

1. the detailed structure of the surface from high resolution stereo color images
2. the elemental composition of the surface and subsurface samples
3. the organic compounds in the soil (if any)
4. a study of temporal and spatial variations of the atmosphere composition
5. meteorological data
6. a study of dust storms

The expected lifetime of the rover is one year. The distance covered during one working day varies between 50-200 meters depending on the nature of the soil and the terrain, and also on the time taken by the measurements. This amounts to 40-50 kilometers in one year, which enables us to investigate very different terrain types.

The onboard computer has two major tasks. The first is rather traditional on spacecrafts: data acquisition, telemetry, Earth command execution, housekeeping. The second is the navigation control of the vehicle: stereo vision, path generation, motion control.

Due to the required high computing power the onboard computer will be based on INMOS transputers (32 bit, support for multiprocessor systems). The real-time concurrent operating system is produced by our institute as well. We also assist the Russian Space Research Institute (IKI) in the design of the navigation software.

 The rover development focuses on the design of the navigation system. It includes the onboard computer, the imaging subsystem, other sensors and the locomotion subsystem. While the onboard computer and the I/O architecture is designed by KFKI RMKI, the rest of the elements are the work of two Russian partners, IKI (Moscow) and VNIITRANSZMAS (Saint Petersburg). KFKI RMKI also takes part in the development of the navigation software.

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 Comments to Pál VIZI  p.vizi@rmki.kfki.hu  

 Contact to Sándor SZALAI szalai@rmki.kfki.hu