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First Experiments in the Robotic Investigation of Life in the Atacama Desert of Chile
D. Wettergreen, N. Cabrol, J. Teza, P. Tompkins, C. Urmson, V. Verma, M.D. Wagner, and W.L. Whittaker
International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, April, 2005.

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The Atacama Desert of northern Chile may be the most lifeless place on Earth, yet where the desert meets the Pacific coastal range desiccation-tolerant micro-organisms are known to exist. The gradient of biodiversity and habitats in the Atacama?s subregions remain unexplored and are the focus of the Life in the Atacama project. To conduct this investigation, long traverses must be made across the desert with instruments for geologic and biologic measurements. In this paper we motivate the Life in the Atacama project from both astrobiologic and robotic perspectives. We focus on some of the research challenges we are facing to enable endurance navigation, resource cognizance, and long-term survivability. We conducted our first scientific investigation and technical experiments in Chile with the mobile robot Hyperion. We describe the experiments and the results of our analysis. These results give us insight into the design of an effective robotic astrobiologist and into the methods by which we will conduct scientific investigation in the next field season.

Sponsor: NASA
Grant ID: NAG5-12890

Associated centers: SRI and FRC
Associated project: Life in the Atacama

Number of pages: 6

D. Wettergreen, N. Cabrol, J. Teza, P. Tompkins, C. Urmson, V. Verma, M.D. Wagner, and W.L. Whittaker, "First Experiments in the Robotic Investigation of Life in the Atacama Desert of Chile," International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, April, 2005.

@inproceedings{Wettergreen_2005_4971,
   author = "David Wettergreen and Nathalie Cabrol and James Teza and Paul Tompkins and Christopher Urmson and Vandi Verma and Michael D Wagner and William Red L. Whittaker",
   title = "First Experiments in the Robotic Investigation of Life in the Atacama Desert of Chile",
   booktitle = "International Conference on Robotics and Automation",
   month = "April",
   year = "2005",
   publisher = "IEEE"
}