The research is led by academics and students from the Faculties of Geodesy and Cartography, and Electronics and Information Technology at the Warsaw University of Technology, in collaboration with the Faculty of Geography and Geology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. The project also includes partnerships with universities in Basel (Switzerland), and San Jose (U.S.).
The researchers recently completed an initial series of three-day tests with two rovers equipped with advanced sensors, including Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging), stereoscopic cameras, and ground-penetrating radar.
The tests are being conducted at the Warsaw University of Technology’s Józefosław center, which is home to the CENAGIS (Centre for Scientific Geospatial Analyses and Satellite Computations) project.
Professor Robert Olszewski, the project leader from the Warsaw University of Technology, has suggested that a swarm of rovers could offer significant advantages, including a broader operational reach on the Red Planet and the ability of smaller devices to back each other up in the event of a malfunction.
These compact rovers, each weighing around 8 kg, can be equipped with simpler instruments like lidars for laser-based terrain mapping, cameras for capturing images in both visible and infrared light, and georadars for detecting unusual objects beneath the surface. They also have small drilling arms for tasks like searching for water compounds or collecting rock samples.
“We are checking whether our rovers provide feedback that is as reliable as professional surveying equipment. It turns out that the measurements are accurate enough to make a model of the terrain. This creates prospects for using a swarm on Mars,” Professor Olszewski said.
“Rovers can’t wait for instructions from Earth, as the signal delay is too long. They must operate autonomously, much like a colony of ants,” Olszewski added.
Small rovers are 1,000 times cheaper
Olszewski believes this autonomous approach could significantly speed up and reduce the cost of exploration. A small rover is at least 1,000 times cheaper than large-scale rovers like Perseverance, and the distributed nature of the swarm reduces the risk of mission failure—even if several rovers fail, the overall mission can still succeed.
Before deployment on Mars, the devices undergo rigorous testing on Earth. In Poland, tests are conducted on a specially prepared Martian-like field, with two more stages planned, during which the researchers will conduct further analyses, Science in Poland reported.
The next phase involves testing the rovers in Mars-like environments, such as the Atacama Desert or Antarctica, which have low humidity, low temperatures, and geomorphological features similar to those on Mars.
To create the test field in Józefosław, researchers brought in nearly 40 tons of aggregate, primarily dolomite rich in iron, giving it a reddish hue.
The ‘Mars in Józefosław’ rovers were developed by Fiction Lab, a Polish company founded by graduates of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology.
