ExoMars at Aberystwyth
A series of outdoor field trials featuring ‘Bridget’, a full size ExoMars-like rover, were conducted in Clarach beach near Aberystwyth during the summer of 2010. During the trials the Aberystwyth PanCam emulator cameras were mounted onto the mast structure and pointed at potential science targets using a pan and tilt unit, with images captured by its two wideangled cameras and its zoom high resolution camera.
Credit: ESA

3D PANORAMIC CAMERA

in ESA's 2019 Mars Rover Mission

Angela van der Burght

Aberystwyth scientist heads to Chile’s Atacama Desert in preparation for Mars mission

A space scientist from Aberystwyth University will be travelling to Chile’s Atacama Desert later this week as preparations for the 2018 ExoMars mission to Mars continue.
Dr Stephen Pugh from the Institute of Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science (IMPACS) will be working on the ExoMars Panoramic Camera Instrument (PanCam) during a seven day field trial which starts on Monday 7 October.
PanCam will be the science 'eyes' for the mission and will feature a novel colour correction system to ensure that images sent back to earth truly represent the colours on Mars.
Featuring small stained-glass coloured chips manufactured using a process similar to that used in medieval times, the PanCam colour calibration target measures just 50 mm × 50 mm, 18 mm high and weighs no more than 25 grams.
The Aberystwyth PanCam work is led by Professor Dave Barnes, who will be based at mission control at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories during the trial along with other PanCam team members.
“Learning how to operate the PanCam instrument on Mars will be vital to the success of the mission, and this field trial in the Atacama Desert in Chile is a significant step in its development”, said Professor Barnes.
“This will be the first time that the instrument prototypes will be integrated with an ExoMars development rover and tested in such an environment.”

Posted 22 October 2013

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“Mars has little to no ozone in the atmosphere and this means that the high Ultra Violet radiation can cause colours to fade when exposed to sunlight. The stained-glass idea comes from observing the many stained-glass windows in churches, many of which date back to medieval times. These have been exposed to sunlight for centuries and show little to no colour degradation.

Scientists want the returned images to be colour corrected (as if they were being viewed by a human) to help them in identifying potential science targets for further investigation”, added Professor Barnes.
The Aberystwyth team will be responsible for processing the images taken by PanCam using a variety of computer vision techniques and algorithms developed at Aberystwyth.
A third member of the Aberystwyth team, Dr Laurence Tyler, will also be based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories during the trial.
The ExoMars mission is led by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos). The SAFER field trial is performed by an industrial team in the frame of a Research and Development contract of ESA’s Directorate of Technical and Quality Management.
Funding for the Aberystwyth University work has been provided by the UK Space Agency.
The field trial SAFER – Sample Filed Acquisition Experiment with a Rover in Paranal, Atacama Desert, Chile – runs from Monday 7 until Sunday 13 October.

What is it about the properties of stained-glass that make the colours so stable and resistant to UV radiation?

"The colour centres are formed as a nano-particle suspension within the glass substrate, and this substrate acts as an efficient UV blocker, thus preventing any chemical reactions from occurring that will change the colour properties."

What role does the calibration target play in the working of the camera, will it be used just once at the start of the mission or is it needed to regularly calibrate the camera?

"The calibration target will be imaged throughout the mission. Essentially every time we want to image a science target to obtain multispectral data, then we will image the calibration target at the same time using the same multispectral filters (or as close as we can get to the same time). What is important is obtaining calibration target images under the same illumination conditions as those being experienced by the science target (e.g. rocks etc.). Using laboratory (pre-flight) reflectance data of the calibration target, we can compare these data to the reflectance data obtained on Mars.This allows us to perform a radiometric and colourimetric correction of the captured PanCam images so that science target reflectance spectra and natural colour image products can be generated."

Follow SAFER online:
The latest information about the field trial is available in a blog - http://safertrial.wordpress.com

Rose window cathedral Strasbourg, France

"Although medieval artisans didn't know they were using it, nanotechnology played a key part in creating stained-glass windows. Medieval stained-glass was created by trapping gold nanoparticles in the 'glass matrix' to create a red colour. Silver nanoparticles, meanwhile, gave it a deep yellow colour. This meant that it would never fade, despite sitting in sunlit windows for hundreds of years.

Similar stained-glass will be used in a robotic camera during the European Space Agency's ExoMars Rover mission to the Red Planet in 2019. The colour centres in the Rover's camera are formed as a nano-particle suspension within the glass and this acts as an efficient UV blocker. The stained-glass idea comes from observing the many stained-glass windows in churches - many of which date back to medieval times."

Prototype of the PanCam colour calibration target by Professor Dave Barnes
Credit: Institute of Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science (IMPACS)

"The colour centres are formed as a nano-particle suspension within the glass and this acts as an efficient UV blocker. This prevents chemical reactions from occurring that will change the colours." The small stained-glass coloured chips measure just 50 mm W 50 mm, are 18 mm high and weigh no more than 25 grams. "They were made using traditional medieval processes developed hundreds of years ago.
Professor Barnes said: 'We had to go back to some old chemistry recipe books to find out these traditional methods."

PanCam - Rover Inspection Mirror

Date: 20 Oct 2010
Depicts: The flattened image of the Rover Inspection Mirror of PanCam after the editing
Copyright: Aberystwyth University

PanCam is supplemented by a 5-cm diameter calibration target and by a small spherical mirror, the Rover Inspection Mirror, which enable the camera to capture images of every part of the Rover. The images taken are then processed and can be used to check the status of the Rover. This image illustrates a photo taken with the contribution of the Rover Inspection Mirror of PanCam after editing.
©Aberystwyth University