A New Approach to Future Mars Missions Using Bioinspired Technology Innovations

Bioinspired technology breakthroughs of insect inspired navigation are enabling small aircraft that will allow exploration of Mars. The bioinspired technologies under development consist of a bioinspired navigation-control system, human vision inspired and birds of prey inspired search and track systems. Two classes of new missions for Mars exploration: 1) the long range exploration missions and 2) critical ephemeral phenomena observation missions can be enabled by incorporation of these bioinspired technology breakthroughs in such flyers. In this paper we describe our implementation of an image based guidance algorithms that can be used for imaging the descent and landing of mission payloads on Mars, thus potentially enabling a ”black box” capability as a unique risk mitigation tool for landed missions of all types. Further on, such capabilities could enable observation of a variety of other ephemeral phenomena such as tracking dust storms in real-time.