Field geology with a wearable computer: 1st results of the Cyborg Astrobiologist System
Patrick C. McGuire, Javier Gomez-Elvira, Jose Antonio, Rodriguez-Manfredi, Eduardo Sebastian-Martinez, Jens Ormo, Enrique, Diaz-Martinez, Markus Oesker, Robert Haschke, Joerg Ontrup, Helge Ritter

TL;DR
This paper reports on initial field tests of the Cyborg Astrobiologist, a wearable computer system with computer vision that autonomously identifies interesting geological features in real-time, demonstrating promising capabilities for autonomous exploration.
Contribution
First field implementation of a wearable computer system with real-time image analysis and autonomous interest-point detection for geological exploration.
Findings
Hardware and software systems function reliably.
Algorithms effectively identify interesting points in real-time.
System demonstrates potential for autonomous geological exploration.
Abstract
We present results from the first geological field tests of the `Cyborg Astrobiologist', which is a wearable computer and video camcorder system that we are using to test and train a computer-vision system towards having some of the autonomous decision-making capabilities of a field-geologist. The Cyborg Astrobiologist platform has thus far been used for testing and development of these algorithms and systems: robotic acquisition of quasi-mosaics of images, real-time image segmentation, and real-time determination of interesting points in the image mosaics. This work is more of a test of the whole system, rather than of any one part of the system. However, beyond the concept of the system itself, the uncommon map (despite its simplicity) is the main innovative part of the system. The uncommon map helps to determine interest-points in a context-free manner. Overall, the hardware and…
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Taxonomy
TopicsSpace Science and Extraterrestrial Life · Space Exploration and Technology
