Antarctic Meteorite Search Field Demonstration

Principal Investigator:
William Whittaker (412-268-6559, red@ri.cmu.edu)
The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Amount requested: $1,000,000
For the period 10/1/97 to 9/30/98

1.	Program Overview
The analysis of the ALH84001 and EETA79001 Antarctic meteorites has led scientists to speculate that life may have once existed on Mars. This prospect calls for response, putting before the nation and science community the impetus to charter missions to search for extraterrestrial life on Earth and in the far reaches of space. 
It is foregone that the near generation of man’s agents to the planets will be robots. To address some of the technological and operational issues related to very remote planetary exploration, robotic demonstrations in analogous environments on Earth are highly useful. Antarctica presents a close analog to planetary exploration with regards to issues of environmental survival, communication, power, navigation, and scientific research. An ideal context for robotic Antarctic demonstrations with relevance to planetary exploration is the search for meteorites.
Through tireless investigation in the harsh Antarctic environment and using computer sensing to search above and below the ice surface, such robots could explore vast stretches of Antarctica to find otherwise undetected meteorites. The use of robots could augment the human search for meteorites by working full-day cycles in the deep cold, and by detecting surface meteorites obscured to the human eye by blowing or drifting snow. In a few years, robots could find hundreds of meteorites not visible to humans, overlooked by humans, or in areas challenging to the human search.
This program in cooperation with ANSMET, the Chilean Antarctic Institute, and others will perform a series of robotic and science experiments in Western Antarctica in the upcoming expedition season. The team will validate sensors for identification of meteorites located in blue ice in the Patriot Hills area. The proposed sensing modalities are based on non-destructive physical principles and involve the utilization of visual, magnetic, and reflection spectroscopy sensors. Moreover, the team will evaluate robotic technologies associated with solar propulsion, vision and range sensors for reliable robotic navigation, direct satellite communications, and interpretation of robot data for scientific purposes.
In 1998, a robot will perform autonomous searches for meteorites on ice fields designated by field experts based on high-resolution aerial imagery. The robot will demonstrate identification and in-situ characterization of meteorites using learning-based classification in addition to the other techniques. Equipped with radar sensors the robot will also search for subsurface meteorites, augmenting the ongoing human search for surface meteorites. Once a meteorite is detected, onboard computers will record meteorite position, size, geometry, and depth, and provide the information to the human experts for subsequent retrieval.
In the 1999 expedition season a team of two robots will demonstrate cooperative search for meteorites. The robots will search for submerged meteorites and meteorites deposited into areas not covered by human search, e.g. ice fields near crevasses. The robotic search will be under shared control by the expedition team and remote scientists in the continental US. Using a synthesis of surface perception, subsurface sensing, and autonomous searching techniques these robots will become invaluable tools to the ANSMET teams.
This program will also serve the larger goal of forging new partnerships across the science and technology communities. Robotics and Earth science will collaborate on research, development and deployment of robotic meteorite searches in Antarctica, generating a synergy that will further the agendas of each discipline, create new enterprise, and ultimately help to shape field robots essential to planetary exploration.
2.	Objectives
The primary goal of this program is to demonstrate robotic operations with planetary analogs of environment, communication, power, control, navigation and scientific research.  This three year initiative is driven by the urgency for the development of robotic technology to serve near term planetary exploration.  This program will produce convincing demonstrations of robotic planetary analog technologies, and will promote a terrestrial scientific agenda as well.
The scientific objectives of the program are to:
•	Enable robotic-assisted search for Antarctic meteorites
•	Perform searches in areas challenging to humans
•	Have remote scientists supervise the control search
•	Find meteorites on blue ice not visible to humans or cameras
The technical goal of the program is to achieve robust robot performance in harsh environments under remote and infrequent remote control. The approach falls under the lunar paradigm in the sense that Antarctica is a direct lunar analog of terrain (barren), south pole temperatures (220 K), and communication (non-LOS to direct link).
3.	Justification
Development and evaluation of a robot capable of extended search for meteorites in Antarctica will further NASA’s search for planetary life. Such a robotic expedition will serve as a driver for robotic technologies, a forum for demonstrating results, and a clear step toward exploration of the planets. The technical objectives of scientific exploration, environmental survival, and self-sustained mission performance are fundamental to NASA’s charter in exploration and are directly relevant to the joint NASA/ NSF initiative to operate in the Antarctica as an analog to the Moon and Mars. 
This program is also justified by the need to increase the rate of collection and number of collected samples of Antarctic meteorites that may be of Martian origin, in order to provide additional information on the chemical and physical composition of the surface of Mars and allow examination for additional evidence of any past Martian life. Of the 15,000 meteorites collected to date only 12 are believed to be of Martian origin. The most interesting ones have been found in Antarctica; specifically ALH84001 and EETA79001 were collected from the Allan Hills ice field and Elephant Moraine, respectively. Robotic search in Antarctica will support and dramatically extend the human search for meteorites.
Antarctica’s lengthy diurnal cycle and remote location will simulate conditions and transmission delays encountered in a mission to the poles of the Moon or the ice caps of Mars, making an Antarctic robotic exploration the ideal planetary paradigm of robotic search. 
4.	Approach
This program will:
•	Build upon the technologies and demonstrations of the Atacama Desert Trek and the Lunar Rover Demonstration programs.
•	Deepen Nomad technologies across the board: For example, retrofit desert robot locomotion into the ice meteorobot, enable direct rover-to-satellite communications.
•	Leverage on off-the-shelf sensing and navigation technologies.
•	Develop, integrate, and test in a recurrent nine-month cycle.
•	Field our prototypes early to achieve performance.
•	Culminate yearly efforts in Antarctic demonstrations of escalating challenges.
•	Develop strong partnerships with ANSMET, government, and commercial organizations to make the program an absolute success.
4.1	Human Search for Antarctic meteorites
For over four decades, scientific search teams from around the world have endured Antarctica’s harsh climate and treacherous terrain in ventures that are tedious, often dangerous, and always unpredictable. Search teams can spend weeks with little or no yield — or discover hundreds of meteorites within a few square kilometers.
Today, the meteorite search strategy is based on a sound understanding of probable sites. Using satellite and aerial imagery, scientists target exposed ice bedrock migrating from the central to the coastal regions. Of particular interest are areas where this bedrock has collided with the massive transantarctic mountains to create new landscapes.
In the field, however, the human search for meteorites is largely confined to visual inspection of the surface of ice and moraines. Researchers identify meteorites, mark their locations with flags, map reference areas, and carefully collect the meteorites. Critical to this process is absolute protection against contamination; the meteorites are preserved in their frozen state and sent to ANSMET facilities at NASA’s Johnson Space Center for analysis and classification.
Meteorites vary in size, shape, and composition. While typically 2 cm to 15 cm across, meteorites as large as 1 m across have been discovered. Generally, their shape is flat elliptical or near spherical, with extruded features and a glossy brownish to black color attributed to a fusion crust. The majority of the discovered meteorites are stony meteorites, some of which contain iron or other magnetic elements. Some iron meteorites have also been found.
4.2	Robotic-assisted meteorite detection demonstration
The meteorobot will extend the human search for meteorites by tireless work in cold and full-day cycles, and by detecting surface meteorites obscured to the human eye by blowing or drifting snow. In full collaboration with US scientists and the Antarctic field party S058, the meteorobot will traverse an open blue ice field in a search pattern. 
To detect both metallic and non-metallic meteorites, the meteorobot will use a sensor suite consisting of metal detectors and magnetometers (to detect iron), infrared (to detect silicates) multi-spectral close-up imagery, and optical spectrometers. Robotic deployment of these technologies in Antarctica will offer substantial value to human search techniques. In a compact, mobile package of sensors and onboard computing, a robot will acquire a complete field of data and process size, depth, geometry, and elemental composition of potential meteorites. 
Once the robot detects a meteorite candidate, its onboard computers will fuse sensor data and record meteorite depth, position, size, and geometry. The meteorobot would then plant a flag or place a visible marker denoting the location of the rock for subsequent retrieval by the ANSMET team. If the initial search yielded a significant number of meteorites, the robot will repeat the search of the same field for multiple seasons. 
The support team would collect the meteorites identified by the robot, using electronic data (GPS location of the find, hardcopies of sensor measurements, in situ photograph of the meteorite, flag number, etc.) and physical marks, such as flags, placed by the robots. 
4.3	Meteorite classification demonstration
Humans rely primarily on vision to recognize surface meteorites. Researchers are trained to recognize meteorites by example: by reviewing samples of meteorite and non-meteorite rocks, they fine tune visual skills for on-site identification of meteorites. Robots could be trained to have similar capabilities using color imagery of meteorite and native Antarctic rocks, neural nets, and other machine learning and classification techniques. Color, texture, and shape would serve as important visible features. Since meteorites are often recognized as being somehow “different” from local rocks, some training could be done “live” on site. Several of the needed vision techniques already exist and have been used in planetary exploration programs. 
For Antarctica, the robot will be trained to visually scan a cluster of rocks on blue ice, segmenting rock images into individual objects for automatic classification. By relying on constrained visual search, the meteorobot will cover a wider area and quickly eliminate the vast majority of surface rocks. Having down-selected the possible meteorites, the robot would closely examine each candidate and use its non-visual sensors to provide more reliable estimates of their composition.
4.4	Robotic technology demonstration
The robotics agenda for FY98 involves experiments that will demonstrate technologies to be used on robots that will work in Antarctica and other high latitude regions on search for meteorites.
The technologies of interest are communications, power, satellite-based positioning, sky (sun) based positioning, visual sensing, radar sensing, laser sensing, and others. Below are brief descriptions of the experiments.
Solar Power Experiment
The solar power experiment intends to quantify the solar power output in Antarctica. To do that, a small device will characterize power output vs. time of day, solar panel angle and different loads. It will also estimate the snow accumulation effect on the performance of the power system.
Satellite Communication Experiment
The digital transmission and reception of digital data through a low-orbit satellite constellation will be evaluated in terms of data rate, duty cycle, and power consumption. The full path from the Antarctic base to Santiago and Pittsburgh will be tested.
Panospheric Experiment
The panospheric camera will be tested in the Antarctic conditions to develop it further for the low contrast and high brightness conditions. The quality of the resulting images will be evaluated for positioning and navigation purposes. Another use of the panospheric sensor is to be used as a star tracker. Special filters are needed to have it work in permanent daylight. 
Radar Mapping Experiment
This experiment will test a radar sensor for mapping ice and snow terrains. The depth of penetration and the echo profiles will be recorded for each type of surface. It will also be tested to detect unseen features under the surface, such as crevasses.
Radar Detection of Buried Objects Experiment
This will test the sensor's ability to detect objects immersed in the ice. We will test the radar on different kinds of rocks and meteorites, placed at various depths. This experiment will evaluate the meteorite detection ability of this sensor.
Laser Mapping Experiment
This experiment will test a laser sensor for mapping ice and snow surfaces. The echo profiles will be recorded for each type of surface. We will evaluate the performance of the sensor under active snow conditions.
GPS Positioning and Orientation Experiment
GPS receivers will be tested to evaluate the availability and accuracy of their readings. Also, a differential GPS-based system to provide high precision readings. The attitude (pitch, roll, yaw) will be sensed with a multi-antenna system, to be compared to a magnetic compass readings. The Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) will cooperate with this experiment.
5. 	Advances over the state-of-art
This program will advance the state-of-art in telerobotics with demonstrations of robotic technologies of terrain perception, position estimation, autonomous navigation, direct satellite communication, solar propulsion, and  mechanisms. The demonstrations will address the unique requirements of polar exploration and be relevant to the needs of near-term planetary missions.
Robotic search for meteorites will advance the current practice of human search for meteorites in that it will:
•	Enable the detection of submerged meteorites or meteorites deposited in areas not covered by human search. 
•	Accelerate the meteorite characterization process with in-situ confirmation of samples.
•	Produce meteorite search from a remote site through telepresence interfaces.
•	Increase the rate of search coverage for Antarctic meteorites. Meteorobots will operate on 24-hour cycles in adverse conditions to achieve thorough coverage of scientifically interesting regions.
6.	Schedule and milestones
Beginning in FY97, a collaborative initiative of Earth scientists and robotic scientists will produce robots to search key areas of the Antarctic continent over four seasons, each with escalating difficulty, duration, and aspiration. Within two years, the program will produce the first meteorite found by a robot. 
The key activities and milestone demonstrations of the program will be the following:
FY97
•	Scientists provide guidance in the development of robotic perception systems for remote meteorite search. Scientists and roboticists work cooperatively to formulate the program agenda.
•	Jul 97: An existing desert robotic explorer demonstrates vision-based navigation and localization of interesting artifacts.
•	Program develops integrated sensor suite for detection of meteorites. With direction from planetary scientists, research produces reliable perception for identifying meteorites using multiple sensing modes.
FY98
•	Dec 97: Program produces a four week validation demonstration of robotic technologies and sensors for identification of meteorites in Antarctica.
•	Program designs the next generation Nomad robot that will feature solar powered electromechanisms, fully enclosed propulsion and computing, and planetary relevant hardware and software architectures.
•	Program develops technologies for classifying surface meteorites by training sensors using samples in the ANSMET Meteorite Collection at the Johnson Space Center. The sensors automatically locate meteorites of various sizes in testbed environments.
FY99
•	Dec 98: Nomad will perform autonomous searches for meteorites on ice fields designated by field experts based on high-resolution aerial imagery. The robot will demonstrate identification and in-situ characterization of meteorites using learning-based classification in addition to the other techniques. Equipped with radar sensors the robot will also search for subsurface meteorites, augmenting the ongoing human search for surface meteorites. 
•	Program prototypes and hardens Nomad II. 
•	Program develops coordination techniques for formation driving, and integrates surface perception with task-autonomous search techniques and confirmation sensors.
FY00
•	Dec 99: The two Nomad robots will demonstrate cooperative search for meteorites. The robots will search for submerged meteorites and meteorites deposited into areas not covered by human search, e.g. ice fields near crevasses. The robotic search will be under shared control by the expedition team and remote scientists in the continental US. Using a synthesis of surface perception, subsurface sensing, and autonomous searching techniques these robots will become invaluable tools to the ANSMET teams.
•	With support from robotic scientists, Earth scientists remotely supervise the autonomous robotic meteorite search, and assess and annotate data transmitted from the field.
7.	Deliverables
The deliverables for FY98, are:
•	First robotic search for Antarctic meteorites. The search will demonstrate vision-based navigation to meteorite candidates, deployment of detection sensors, and data acquisition/logging/annotation/transmission.
•	Robotic and science results from the experiments performed during the Antarctic expedition of 1997.
The program deliverables, are:
•	Two robots for autonomous search of Antarctic meteorites
•	Demonstration of robotic technologies and sensing for autonomous identification of meteorites during three consecutive seasons in Antarctica
8.	Dual-use potential
Dual-use potential of robotic search for Antarctic meteorites includes:
•	Utilization of the meteorite detection technologies in the field of mine detection and localization. We anticipate a strong collaboration between the Meteorite Search and the De-mining project at Carnegie Mellon.
•	Transfer of the meteorobot locomotion, power, and communication technologies to DARPA’s Small Unit Operations (SUO) UGV program.
9.	Participants, partnerships, and facilities
9.1	Participants
•	Field Robotics Center, The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University.
•	Mars Exploration Program.
•	NSF ANSMET Program and Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Ralph Harvey, team leader of ANSMET S058.
•	University of Pittsburgh, Dr. William Cassidy, foremost expert on Antarctic meteorites, 15 seasons in Antarctica, leader of the team that discovered ALH84001. 
•	NASA Ames Research Center: Scientist user interface, meteorite confirmation technologies, and vision-based navigation.
9.2	Partnerships
For this program to be successful we anticipate several critical partnerships with government, commercial, and educational organizations.
•	Meteorite Curation Laboratory, Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX: Center for classification, storage, and curation of meteorites. 
•	Defense Research Establishment (DRES), Canada: Meteorite detection/confirmation technologies, testing, and proving grounds.
•	De-mining Program of the Multi-interdisciplinary University Research Institute; University of Kansas, University of Missouri, University of Texas (Arlington), Carnegie Mellon University: meteorite detection/confirmation technologies.
•	Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Meteorite detection/confirmation technologies.
•	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: Transantarctic communications using TDRSS and PORTCOM transceivers.
9.3	Facilities
The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University is uniquely qualified to perform the proposed research, due to its extensive experience in creating and operating scores of field robots, its experience in Antarctic operations with the Dante I robot at Mount Erebus, and its decade of planetary rover research for NASA.
The Robotics Institute was established in 1979 as the nation’s first comprehensive robotics research center to conduct research in robotic technologies relevant to scientific, industrial, and governmental needs. The Institute has grown into a powerful, interdisciplinary research organization, which draws upon Carnegie Mellon’s strengths in computer science, engineering, science, and industrial administration.
The Institute has a staff of over 250 personnel, over 50 graduate students enrolled in affiliated programs, and 70 graduate students enrolled in the Robotics Ph.D. program. The Institute is organized into thirteen dedicated research laboratories and three program centers, which cover the spectrum of robotic research initiatives and encompass a wealth of robotic expertise. The Institute’s depth, breadth, and record of accomplishments is well established. The Institute pursues a comprehensive research agenda that culminates in competent, working robots.
10.	Budget
The budget for FY98 consists of: 
Item	Cost	
Personnel	470,000	
Travel	30,000	
Operating expenses	60,000	
Equipment & field demo	130,000	
Overhead	310,000	
		
Total	1,000,000