The Advanced Concepts Team of the European Space Agency has just released the Android version of the scientific crowdsourcing game called Astro Drone.
In-game view of the Rosetta level in Astro Drone: control the drone to avoid space debris and release the Philae lander.
People who possess a Parrot AR drone can play the game, in which they are challenged to perform different space missions in an augmented reality. In the first level you have to dock to the International Space Station, in the second level you have to avoid space debris while performing ESA's Rosetta mission.
However, the app is more than a game. Players can choose to participate in a scientific crowd-sourcing experiment that aims to improve autonomous capabilities of space probes, such as landing, obstacle avoidance, and docking. If participating, the app extracts visually salient features from the images made by the drone's camera. The features are then combined with the estimates of the drone's state (speed, height) and uploaded. The data is used in a research aiming to improve robot navigation.
Full story: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Technology
For more info: http://www.astrodrone.org/
The Astro Drone app is made in collaboration with the Micro Air Vehicle lab of Delft University of Technology and the Artificial Intelligence department of Radboud University Nijmegen.
In-game view of the ISS docking level, showing the new "video background" feature.
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