Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!news.Brown.EDU!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!torn!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!watnow.uwaterloo.ca!reda
From: reda@watnow.uwaterloo.ca (Reda Ezzat FAYEK)
Subject: Mars Autonomous Vehicle
Message-ID: <C31EAt.GC6@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca>
Keywords: navigation, vehicle, Mars, exploration, mapping, autonomous
Sender: news@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1993 03:42:28 GMT
Lines: 31


Hi there..

I worked on some aspects of the navigation of autonomous vehicles 
for partially known indoor environment for my Master's thesis.

For my Ph.D. (that I started about six months ago) I would like to
investigate some issues in the autonomous navigation in unknown
outdoor environments. I will be looking for the application of machine
vision techniques together with any other scene interpretation and
mapping techniques.

I guess, that one of the most appealing areas for such work is the
exploration of planetary terrains, as they offer a big challenge to
any representation technique. Everything is more or less unknown there.

Therefore, I would like to have some information about the typical tasks
that such autonomous vehicles (like Mars rovers) are expected to perform.
For instance, I would like to know about the goals of the research
conducted in the "big" research labs in this areas and the main issues
where they have difficulties. What are the research problems (worth Ph.D.
theses).

I followed the "debate" about the approaches towards Mars exploration,
and I would appreciate comments from those people in that field of research.

Thank you very much.

Cheers,

Reda
