Screaming Penguin

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109.  TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Contact:  Carolina Martinez (818) 354-9382

INTERNET ADVISORY                             
June 21, 2001

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: IT'S MORE THAN A MOVIE

     Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
will talk 
about the real artificial intelligence work that
takes place 
at NASA in a live webcast, scheduled for June 29,
2001, at 11 
a.m. Pacific Time.

     The webcast will feature answers to questions
submitted 
in advance via e-mail to our webcast producer.

     A link to the live webcast and the producer's
e-mail are 
located at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/webcast/ai .

     Dr. Edward Tunstel, lead robotics engineer on
the FIDO 
rover, a test model for the twin NASA rovers that
will go to 
Mars in 2003, will speak about rover autonomy of
the past and 
future.  Dr. Larry Matthies, Supervisor, Machine
Vision Group, 
will talk about his work on machines with human
vision 
capability. Barbara Engelhardt and Russell Knight
of JPL's 
Artificial Intelligence Software Group, will
answer questions 
on use of artificial intelligence software on
future missions.

     With detailed instructions from the scientist
back home, 
smart machines in space function much like a brain
and use 
inputs from sensors that are like their eyes and
ears to make 
decisions.  Recently, technology has allowed
engineers to 
create intelligent machines that function
independently.  

     Long before the movie coming out next week,
smart rovers 
such as Sojourner used artificial intelligence to
traverse 
Mars in 1997.  The rover had the decision-making
capability to 
move around and decide a path for itself without
the help of 
ground controllers.  Artificial intelligence
software on 
NASA's Deep Space 1 was tested in 1998, and in the
fall of 
2002, JPL will fly the latest AI software that
will command 
the mission for a period of three months.  This
software will 
decide which pictures to send back to Earth.

     Scientists envision a future colony of robots
exploring a 
planet's surface.  A whole fleet of ground rovers,
aerovers 
with flying ability and burrowing, worm-like
probes may make 
up a cooperative mission.  These intelligent
robots would work 
together and share data to make multiple science
measurements.

     JPL is a division of the California Institute of 
Technology in Pasadena.

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