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Fido Completes Longest Drive in Field Trial


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Today FIDO made a long traverse of about 70 meters (230 feet) to investigate some interesting land types in the southern distance. To reach its final destination, engineers directed FIDO through a series of waypoints.

Waypoints are sometimes established to guide the rover around known obstacles. If data indicates that a large rock is in the middle of an otherwise straight traverse, engineers will predetermine locations that direct the rover around the hazard. While the FIDO autonomous hazard avoidance system can perform the same function, waypoints can be useful for biasing the rover's path through preferred areas of the terrain to maximize performance of the rover mobility system. Waypoints were used for Sojourner and will also be used in the Mars Exploration Rover mission.

Thus far, this was the longest traverse distance driven in a sol during this field trial, bringing the team closer to achieving its distance goal of 200 meters (650 feet).

Eddie Tunstel

Mark Powell

Ashitey Trebi-Ollennu

Eric Baumgartner

 

Jeff Norris

 

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Last Updated: 18 August 2002

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