Dielof van Loon and his drone

Dielof van Loon inspects the drone he designed for his internship at the European Space Agency’s Planetary Robotics Laboratory. In his project, he explored the potential of a drone-rover system – where the drone is attached to the rover with a tether – for exploration and localisation.

The martian landscape is not the easiest terrain to get around. Some areas are too rocky for a wheeled rover to cross, and elsewhere a lack of distinctive features in the landscape can cause problems for a camera-based navigation system.

For a flying drone, such a navigation issue can mean the difference between a safe landing and a crash. Dielof investigated what would happen if the two explorers – rover and drone – teamed up.

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[Image description: This is a photograph of a young man with short brown hair holding a simple black and red drone. We only see the man’s head and torso. He’s wearing clear safety glasses, a white shirt with short sleeves, a silver necklace and a watch. Behind him, a model of a rover is displayed on a simulated martian landscape background.]