{"id":297859,"date":"2026-02-23T08:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T08:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/297859\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T08:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T08:39:07","slug":"nasa-uses-mars-helicopters-soc-for-rover-navigation-upgrade-the-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/297859\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA uses Mars Helicopter’s SoC for rover navigation upgrade \u2022 The Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA has revealed it repurposed the processor the Perseverance rover used to communicate with the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, to help the rolling robot navigate the Red Planet autonomously \u201cfor potentially unlimited distances.\u201d<\/p>\n

The aerospace agency revealed the hack last week in a post<\/a> that says it used the rover\u2019s Helicopter Base Station (HBS) because its processor is 100 times faster than the rover\u2019s other kit.<\/p>\n

NASA has previously said<\/a> the HBS runs a Qualcomm 801 processor, a model the mobile chip giant lists<\/a> as running four custom Krait CPUs using Arm-compatible cores of the company\u2019s own design, an Adreno 330 GPU and a Hexagon digital signal processor. The Register\u2019s coverage reports the models on Mars run at 2.26GHz and packs 2GB RAM plus 32GB flash memory, and that NASA ran Linux on the machine.<\/p>\n

With Ingenuity now permanently grounded<\/a> after flying 72 missions, the HBS was idle. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory\u2019s chief engineer of robotics operations Vandi Verma therefore pondered reusing the hardware.<\/p>\n

NASA calls the new workload it created for the SoC \u201cMars Global Localization\u201d and in its post describes it as featuring \u201can algorithm that rapidly compares panoramic images from the rover\u2019s navigation cameras with onboard orbital terrain maps.\u201d<\/p>\n

The agency says the algorithm \u201ctakes about two minutes to pinpoint the rover\u2019s location within some 10 inches (25 centimeters)\u201d and that it\u2019s already in production, having been used on February 2nd and 16th.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is kind of like giving the rover GPS. Now it can determine its own location on Mars,\u201d Verma wrote. \u201cIt means the rover will be able to drive for much longer distances autonomously, so we\u2019ll explore more of the planet and get more science.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s post says the software means \u201cPerseverance can be commanded to drive to potentially unlimited distances without calling home.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a substantial improvement on the rover\u2019s current autonomous navigational tools, which, the post explains, can see the robot become \u201cincreasingly unsure about its exact location\u201d and sometimes get it wrong by up to 35 meters. \u201cBelieving it may be too close to hazardous terrain, Perseverance may prematurely end its drive and wait for instructions from Earth,\u201d the post states.<\/p>\n

\u201cTapping into the HBS computer has had its challenges,\u201d NASA wrote, before explaining that it developed checks that see the algorithm run on the HBS multiple times before one of the rover\u2019s main computers checks to ensure the results match.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring testing, the team repeatedly found the rover\u2019s position was off by 1 millimeter,\u201d the post explains. \u201cThey discovered damage to about 25 bits \u2013 a minuscule fraction of the processor\u2019s 1 gigabyte of memory \u2013 and developed a solution to isolate those bits while the algorithm runs.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA appears to have been too modest to remind us that working on the rover can mean latency of up to 40 minutes, or that the fastest radio aboard Perseverance maxes out at 2 Mbps.<\/p>\n

Verma thinks the work done to develop Mars Global Localization, and deploy it on the Snapdragon, will prove important as spacecraft designers use more commercial silicon. NASA\u2019s post says its boffins have \u201calready turned their sights to the Moon, where difficult lighting conditions and long, cold lunar nights make knowing exactly where spacecraft are located all the more critical.\u201d \u00ae<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA has revealed it repurposed the processor the Perseverance rover used to communicate with the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-297859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}