Reference number : GC-2017-Q1-03157, amendment number : , agreement type : G, recipient legal name : Ellery, Alex (Carleton University), recipient country : CA, recipient province : nan, recipient city : Ontario, recipient postal code : nan, program name english : Discovery Grants Program - Individual, program name french : Programme de subventions à la découverte - individuelles, program purpose english : This proposal involves attempting to provide a sophisticated robotic scientist facility onboard future planetary rovers. In particular, Mars is of interest for its astrobiological potential but Mars is remote and distant. The communications windows to the Martian surface from Earth are sporadic and fleeting. This makes making a Mars rover smarter essential especially since they are proxies for scientists on Earth. If we do not impart sufficient scientific intelligence to the rover, it may miss important scientific phenomena. This proposal seeks to redress that by making the rover smart enough to make scientific decisions on its own. This will involve a complex interplay of image processing, expert systems and learning neural networks to model how a human scientist thinks. This is not to replace the human geologist or astrobiologist of course, merely to augment them. Until human astronauts land on Mars, these rovers are our proxies, performing scientific investigations on our behalf. By giving them enhanced scientific capabilities, we can maximise their scientific productivity so we can learn more about these extraterrestrial environments, and ultimately, whether life does, or has, existed on Mars. Currently, very few people are working on this aspect so this offers an opportunity for Canadian engineers and scientists to take the lead in this field. It will become increasingly important as future rover missions become more sophisticated and demanding., program purpose french : This proposal involves attempting to provide a sophisticated robotic scientist facility onboard future planetary rovers. In particular, Mars is of interest for its astrobiological potential but Mars is remote and distant. The communications windows to the Martian surface from Earth are sporadic and fleeting. This makes making a Mars rover smarter essential especially since they are proxies for scientists on Earth. If we do not impart sufficient scientific intelligence to the rover, it may miss important scientific phenomena. This proposal seeks to redress that by making the rover smart enough to make scientific decisions on its own. This will involve a complex interplay of image processing, expert systems and learning neural networks to model how a human scientist thinks. This is not to replace the human geologist or astrobiologist of course, merely to augment them. Until human astronauts land on Mars, these rovers are our proxies, performing scientific investigations on our behalf. By giving them enhanced scientific capabilities, we can maximise their scientific productivity so we can learn more about these extraterrestrial environments, and ultimately, whether life does, or has, existed on Mars. Currently, very few people are working on this aspect so this offers an opportunity for Canadian engineers and scientists to take the lead in this field. It will become increasingly important as future rover missions become more sophisticated and demanding., agreement title english : Robotic astrobiology - enhancing scientific productivity of planetary rover missions, agreement title french : Robotic astrobiology - enhancing scientific productivity of planetary rover missions, agreement number : RGPIN, agreement value : 110000.0, agreement start date : 2017-05-10, agreement end date : nan, description english : nan, description french : nan, expected results english : nan, expected results french : nan, additional information english : Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023), additional information french : Subvention ou bourse octroyée s'appliquant à plus d'un exercice financier. (2017-2018 à 2022-2023), owner organization : nserc-crsng, owner organization title : Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada | Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada