{"id":1731,"date":"2018-02-21T16:13:23","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T16:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.nau.edu\/exploring-mars-virtual-reality\/"},"modified":"2022-09-14T08:40:04","modified_gmt":"2022-09-14T15:40:04","slug":"scientists-propose-exploring-mars-with-drones-and-virtual-reality-at-nau-nau-news-nau-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/scientists-propose-exploring-mars-with-drones-and-virtual-reality-at-nau-nau-news-nau-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists propose exploring Mars with drones and virtual reality at NAU &#8211; NAU News : NAU News"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>NAU astrophysics researchers and the <a href=\"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/sbs\/communication\/ivr-lab\/home\/\"><strong>Interactive + Immersive Virtual Reality Lab<\/strong><\/a> (IVR) are collaborating to propose new methods to explore the surface of Mars.<\/p>\n<p>Current rover science is limited to a semi-autonomous probe with on-board instruments to sample and send data back to Earth. While they have yielded enormous amounts of data, scientists have not been able to interpret all of it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRovers are currently very limited, in terms of how much of an area they can see,\u201d assistant professor of computing programs and earth sciences <strong>Temuulen \u201cTeki\u201d Sankey<\/strong> said. \u201cWe have no idea what goes on outside of the rover\u2019s pathway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Salvatore<\/strong>, assistant professor of astronomy and planetary geologist, said drones and virtual reality (VR) technology could \u201cgive us a greater sense of scale, depth perception and relativity, all of which will save time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Using multi-band laser scanners, a drone can scan the surface of a terrain, and a 3D reconstruction of the terrain can be created to explore it in VR, allowing researchers to explore the planetary geology alongside the robotic explorer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUtilizing multispectral data, we can detect differences in plant moisture and soil moisture,\u201d Sankey said. \u201cThe drone can scan those areas, without having a rover drive around all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The IVR Lab is expanding its research across campus and hopes to contribute to NAU\u2019s goal of becoming a top-tier research university.<\/p>\n<p>For more information about current research projects and student opportunities, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/SBS\/Communication\/IVR-Lab\/Home\/\">IVR\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/news.nau.edu\/exploring-mars-virtual-reality\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Scientists propose exploring Mars with drones and virtual reality at NAU \u2013 NAU News : NAU News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NAU astrophysics researchers and the Interactive + Immersive Virtual Reality Lab (IVR) are collaborating to propose new methods to explore the surface of Mars. Current rover science is limited to a semi-autonomous probe with on-board instruments to sample and send data back to Earth. While they have yielded enormous amounts of data, scientists have not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":1732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[178],"class_list":["post-1731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-astronomy-and-planetary-science","tag-viabookmarklet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1731"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4591,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions\/4591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/department-astronomy-planetary-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}