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News Release from: Royal Academy of Engineering
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 30 April 2008
Researchers work on lunar rover
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
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 1 Jun 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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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.
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