Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Mini-rover imagery of Chang’e-6 lander/ascender.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP

That photo of China’s Chang’e-6 far side lunar lander/ascender came courtesy of a tiny, 11-pound (5 kilograms) mini robot rover.

The device was powered by autonomous piloting and artificial intelligence (AI) camera technology.

Once detached from the Chang’e-6 lander, the small rover moved to an optimal position and using onboard artificial intelligence and neural networks, it composed and captured the third-person view of the Moon scene without human input.

Tiny rover on lunar surface as viewed by Chang’e-6 lander.
Image credit: CLPS/CNSA/China ‘N Asia Spaceflight

Best angle and composition

The mini-rover moved to a relatively suitable location for taking pictures, then intelligently choose the best angle and composition, “leaving some precious memories for the Chang’e-6 mission,” said Xing Yan, staff member of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab

“We are enhancing its autonomy with AI technology, and we’re still using neural networks. We give full play to neural networks’ ability to learn from human experience, and it can achieve many things that cannot be achieved with traditional methods, such as adjusting the angle of the photo,” Xing told China Central Television (CCTV).

“This also verifies the feasibility of this AI technology based on neural networks under the constraints of limited computing resources on the lunar surface,” said Xing.

Mini-rover underges deployment testing. Image credit: CCTV/SegerYU/Inside Outer Space screengrab

Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab