Swarmathon To Mars

Jason Isaacs, California State University, Channel Islands

Stevenson Hall 1300
12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

The next phase of the NASA Mars Exploration Program involves sending a spacecraft to Mars and returning it safely to Earth. The first passengers on such a mission will not be human astronauts but Mars rovers instead. The success of this mission requires theses rovers to locate and retrieve local resources on Mars. This process is referred to as In-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Technologies are needed to allow a large group of autonomous rovers to find and collect materials such as ice, which can be converted, into hydrogen fuel to power the return journey. Toward this long-term goal NASA through a cooperative agreement between the NASA Minority University Research and Education Program (MUREP) and the University of New Mexico in partnership with the NASA KSC Swamp Works has developed a national competition called the Swarmathon where teams of students develop foraging and collection algorithms for a swarm of rovers. In this seminar I will discuss the CSU Channel Islands participation in the NASA Swarmathon Competition and our approach to addressing these challenging problems.