Visit the Flir Systems web site
Click on the advert above to visit the company web site

Product category: Engineering Industry Developments and Awards
News Release from: Royal Academy of Engineering
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial Team on 30 April 2008

Researchers work on lunar rover

Request your FREE weekly copy of the Engineeringtalk email newsletter. News about Engineering Industry Developments and Awards and more every issue. Click here for details.

Dr Gao and Professor Ju will both spend six months working at each other's universities, investigating onboard guidance, navigation and control systems for a lunar rover.

UK-based space engineer Dr Yang Gao of the Surrey Space Centre is to develop a new generation of lunar rovers with one of China's top engineers, funded by The Royal Academy of Engineering The project will pave the way for future moon missions, including the UK's proposed Moonraker lander mission and the second phase of China's Chang'e programme

Dr Gao, originally from Singapore, is a lecturer in space autonomy at the Surrey Space Centre of the University of Surrey and Head of the Autonomy Research Group.

She will be working with Associate Professor Hehua Ju of the Beijing University of Technology on one of the first projects supported by The Royal Academy of Engineering's new Research Exchanges with China and India scheme.

Dr Gao and Professor Ju will both spend six months working at each other's universities, investigating onboard guidance, navigation and control systems that allow a lunar rover to operate autonomously.

One challenge is to develop robust stereo vision systems with precision of centimetres that can cope with the bright sunlight cauesd by the moon's thin atmosphere.

They will also investigate autonomous localisation, path and motion planning techniques applicable to the lunar mission scenario.

It is part of their plan to establish a remote control station in Surrey and operate during field tests in China of a latest lunar rover prototype.

China's Chang'e programme, named after an angel in a Chinese legend who drinks a magic potion and flies to the moon, released its Chang'e 1 lunar orbiter in November 2007.

China's National Space Agency plans a robotic lander and rover mission as the second phase in 2012.

Royal Academy of Engineering: contact details and other news
Email this article to a colleague
Register for the free Engineeringtalk email newsletter
Engineeringtalk Home Page

Search the Pro-Talk network of sites

Visit the Flir Systems web site