{"id":50025,"date":"2018-02-21T10:14:16","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T17:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=50025"},"modified":"2018-02-21T10:14:16","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T17:14:16","slug":"exploring-mars-virtual-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/exploring-mars-virtual-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists propose exploring Mars with drones and virtual reality at NAU"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NAU astrophysics researchers and the <a href=\"https:\/\/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, directed by <strong>Giovanni Castillo<\/strong>, 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:\/\/nau.edu\/SBS\/Communication\/IVR-Lab\/Home\/\">IVR\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"search-results-excerpt-link\" href=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/exploring-mars-virtual-reality\/\">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;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":50027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}