LITTLE ROCK — The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will receive $750,000 from NASA for robot-vision research, the school announced Thursday.
The money will be used as part of the space agency's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). A majority of the funds will go to research and development for Dr. Cagg Ye, an applied science professor with the university who is currently working on robot-vision systems for vehicles on the moon or Mars.
“The system will estimate the rover’s position and orientation along the path, mapping its surrounding into a large scale 3-D map, analyze the map, and make navigational decisions,” Ye said in a release. “The FLC-based system may achieve better accuracy and repeatability of position and orientation estimates and produce more accurate and reliable 3-D map than the current stereovision approach used in the Mars rovers."
UALR is one of 17 research colleges and universities sharing a $12.6 million grant project for research and development in in areas that support NASA's mission and higher education.