Dropter - delivery and landing rovers

Dropter - a project of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the framework of StarTiger. Its purpose is to smooth descent of mobile devices moving to safe areas of the rocky surface of Mars. H5>



StarTiger is a program ESA, when in one well-equipped research center is going to highly qualified team of experts from different fields, they put complex technical problems and provides a time limit for its decision. Last Team StarTiger was posted at the research center Airbus Defence & Space in Bremen (Germany), which included engineers from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Portuguese aviation company Spin.Works and Poznan University of Technology. Select the project in the period of 8 months, the scientists were given the task - create resets the drone visual navigation, the ability to detect and avoid interference. Drone should detect the most suitable for the landing place, determine the height and lower the rover on cables.

Currently the maximum altitude Dropter'a 17 meters, coming to the surface to 10 meters, the drone begins to produce 5-meter cable rover, continuing to decline before landing lander. Flight tests took place at Airbus site in northern Germany, which is still in the 1940s, was the scene of rocket experiments Eugen Zenger, project manager «Zilberfogel" < / a>. Was to create a platform 40 by 40 meters, which resembles the rocky surface of Mars, which was to be launched Mars rover to a safe area. For a preliminary test apparatus was assembled from components of commercial drones. Using GPS and inertial systems, drone gets to the intended point, then goes into a visual-based navigation of laser range finders and barometer, and to set down the rover.



Historical landings and crashes on Mars:





Source: habrahabr.ru/post/231345/