The Perseverance rover, which was launched nine years after Curiosity, has more advanced software which has a particular feature called thinking while driving which allows it to perform a certain amount of driving autonomously, or by itself. The rover uses an auto-navigation system called AutoNav which takes images from its cameras to build up a 3D map of its environment, then plans a route to avoid obstacles. This software still needs human drivers to oversee the routes it plans out, but the system allows Perseverance to travel much faster: 120 meters per hour compared to Curiosity’s 20 meters per hour. Curiosity has its own, older version of AutoNav, but now it has been upgraded with new software to make it quicker.
“This won’t let Curiosity drive as quickly as Perseverance, but instead of stopping for a full minute after a drive segment, we’re stopping for just a moment or two,” said Curiosity’s engineering operations team chief Jonathan Denison. “Spending less time idling between drive segments also means we use less energy each day. And even though we’re almost 11 years old, we’re still implementing new ideas to use more of our available energy for science activities.”
Perseverance has the advantage of a special dedicated computer for its autonomous navigation, which is why it can still travel faster. Curiosity doesn’t have a dedicated computer, so it will still need to stop to process images of the terrain, but now it can do this processing faster.
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