LOS ANGELES, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Perseverance Mars rover has completed its first drives on the Red Planet planned by artificial intelligence (AI), the agency said Friday.
The demonstration, conducted on Dec. 8 and 10 last year, and led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), used generative AI to create waypoints for the Perseverance rover -- a complex decision-making task that has traditionally been performed manually by human rover planners.
During the demonstration, the team used a type of generative AI known as vision-language models to analyze existing data from JPL's surface mission dataset. According to NASA, the AI relied on the same imagery and terrain data used by human planners to generate waypoints -- fixed locations where the rover receives a new set of instructions -- enabling Perseverance to safely navigate challenging Martian terrain.
With AI-generated waypoints stored in its memory, Perseverance drove 210 meters on Dec. 8 and another 246 meters two days later.
"This demonstration shows how far our capabilities have advanced and broadens how we will explore other worlds," said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.
"Autonomous technologies like this can help missions to operate more efficiently, respond to challenging terrain, and increase science return as distance from Earth grows. It's a strong example of teams applying new technology carefully and responsibly in real operations," he said. ■