Terry Fong's blog

Phew! What a great two weeks it has been! I am absolutely thrilled by how much we accomplished during this field test. Not only did we collect a tremendous amount of ground recon data, which I'm sure will greatly improve planning and operations for the upcoming Lunar Electric Rover mission, but we also gained many significant insights into robotic recon and learned many valuable lessons about analog testing at Black Point Lava Flow. I'm looking forward to the many papers and reports that will come in the following weeks...

After two weeks of K10 field operations, we have finished collecting robotic recon data at Black Point Lava Flow. One thing that we have learned during this test is that Google Earth is a wonderful tool for visualizing robot operations and data.

After operating for more than 60 hours over the past two weeks, K10 completed its last "robotic recon" traverse today. The last traverse (plan number 64D) was a 800 m westward drive through brush covered terrain with eight microscopic terrain image captures and three GigaPan panoramas. Just as K10 reached the end of this drive, a fierce wind, dust and lightning storm suddenly appeared. The field team barely had time to cover K10 before having to run and seek shelter, leaving K10 to brave the storm by itself! I guess this was Mother Nature's way of giving K10 a big send-off...

During the past few days, Liam Pedersen has been working to automatically transform the data captured by K10's lidar into elevation maps and traversability maps (which indicate areas where K10 can, and cannot, traverse). This image shows a colored elevation map overlaid on Google Earth. The elevation map was generated from two successive lidar scans, each of which has a 40x40 degree field of view. The map makes it much easier to understand the slope of the lava flow.

The field team has been working tirelessly the past two weeks: driving early each morning to Black Point Lava Flow from Flagstaff, working long hours, and getting back late every evening. They done a superb job keeping K10 running, even in strong winds, in rain, in heat, and in dust storms. And, they've remained motivated, determined, and full of good spirit throughout the entire time.

Today we used the K10 robot to scout a "basin" area at Black Point. The ground control team at the NASA Lunar Science Institute remotely operated K10 for 6 hours and covered more than 1km of distance. This map shows the recon data that we collected: yellow "M" squares indicate terrain images taken with K10's "microscopic imager" (50 micron/pixel) and green "P" wedges indicate GigaPan (gigapan.org) panoramas.

We finished scouting the "West Area" of Black Point Lava Flow today. K10 drove about 800 meters and took images of the terrain with its microscopic imager, several GigaPan (gigapan.org) panoramas, and a variety of lidar scans.

The science team spent the day developing a field geology traverse plan to explore the "Western Area" of Black Point Lava Flow. We began by creating a plan that would take astronauts driving the Lunar Electric Rover a day to perform. This plan involves visiting 15 stations, or stops, and carrying out work such as rock collection, photography, etc.

We spent today doing initial test setup at Black Point Lava Flow and at the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI). The field team setup the mobile base camp at 10:30a and then unpacked K10 Black, which will be the primary robot for the test. So far, K10 Black looks to be in good shape, with all sensors and science instruments checked out.

IRG's field team arrived at Black Point Lava Flow today along with two K10 robots ("Black" and "Red") and field equipment. The robots are still packed up, but everything seems to have survived transport from NASA Ames in good condition. We'll start unpacking and powering things up tomorrow. In the mean time, we've started testing our mobile base camp (two box trucks and three 4WD pickup trucks).