Astrium’s Bridget Rover Practices Seeing Red On A Canary

[SatNews] The landscape is reminiscent of the Red Planet.

Over a period of 11 days, starting today, Monday, September 12, state-of-the-art planetary exploration technology, Bridget, will be put to the test in landscape reminiscent of the Red Planet — El Teide National Park in Tenerife, which is the beautiful and largest of the Canary Islands. The Astrium Bridget Rover Team have once again been granted access to the El Teide National Park which is favored as a Field Trials venue, having good weather and a rich tapestry of image textures and features. These characteristics are important in providing a wide range of conditions under which to test the imaging systems and image processing software that are at the core of the PRoVisG project. The fact that the National Park is above the cloud base means that the weather is generally very reliable, with lots of blue sky and warm sunshine during the day. The cool nights tend to clear the air giving good visibility.

The test vehicle, Bridget, is a rover prototype designed by Astrium in the UK to advance new interplanetary rover technology. Bridget has been used to develop and test the locomotion, suspension and steering systems, but for these field trials is being used to provide a platform to test cameras and image processing software.

PRoVisG, a European Commission-funded program, stands for Planetary Robotics Vision Ground Processing. Leading-edge computer vision technology will be collected inside and outside Europe to better exploit the image data gathered during future robotic space missions to the moon and the planets.

The project team comprises of experts, scientists and engineers from all over Europe with representation from the USA. They are drawn from academia, research institutions and industry and share a deep interest in the pursuit of space exploration.

The Trials will take place primarily in two areas of the El Teide Park – Llanco de Ucanca and Minas de San Jose.  

Llano de Ucanca provides a flat landscape with fine textures of volcanic sand, pebbles and occasional rocky outcrops visually similar to that encountered on the surface of Mars during long and sustained drives. 

Minas de San Jose is a landscape which is eerily other worldly, featuring crater-like dips not unlike craters as may be found on the surface of the Moon or Mars.  The light tone of the volcanic pumice contrasts with the deep dark browns and blues of the rocky outcrops that are abundant in that area.  The banks of pumice and pebbles form natural climbing slopes that are challenging for rovers and which the imaging technology must take into account.

You can follow the team live as they carry out the trials. Keep up to date with Bridget’s adventures in Tenerife. There will be live streaming of the field trials, a live blog, daily reports and lots of other contents. Watch this space!