RANGE
Robust autonomous acoustic navigation in glacial ice for the search for extraterrestrial life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus
The aim of RANGE is to bring the acoustic navigation up to the latest technological standard to plan a realistic scenario for a space mission and to be used in terrestrial applications. For an Enceladus mission we have to achieve an operator independent degree of autonomy. This is to be pursued through hard- and software solutions and the optimization of current technologies. A network of autonomous acoustic transponders works as a reference system in the glacial ice and enables a probe to navigate to a target coordinate. The further development of acoustic phase arrays enables the imaging of the movement area of the probe and the early identification of structures.
