The Atacama Desert Trek: Outcomes

In June and July 1997, Nomad, a planetary-relevant mobile robot, traversed more than 220 kilometers across the barren Atacama Desert in Chile, exploring a landscape analogous to the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. In this unprecedented demonstration, Nomad operated both autonomously and under the control of operators thousands of kilometers away, addressing issues of robot configuration, communication, position estimation, and navigation in rugged, natural terrain. The field experiment also served to test technologies for remote geological investigation, paving the way for new exploration strategies on Earth and beyond. Finally, by combining safeguarded teleoperation with panoramic visualization and a novel user interface, the Atacama Desert Trek provided the general public a compelling interactive experience an opportunity to remotely drive an exploratory robot. Nomad's performance in the Atacama Desert Trek set a new benchmark in high performance robotics operations relevant to ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1998
• Where: ICRA
• Authors: Deepak Bapna, Eric Rollins, John Murphy, Mark W. Maimone, William Whittaker, David Wettergreen
• Keywords: Atacama Desert, Atacama Desert Trek, ICRA 1998, Planetary Exploration, Robotics