Mobile Wireless Linux Cluster Used for Mars Rovers Application

Friday, October 28, 2011
Hall 1-2 (San Jose Convention Center)
Gordon Skelton, PhD , Computer Science, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS
Kevin Colon , Departamento de Ciencias de Computadoras, Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico Recinto de Guayama, Guayama
Multi-rover systems deal with issues affecting planetary exploration and communications using an interconnected system that adds to the robustness of the network. Similar to other wired mesh-nets this specialized network consists of spatially scattered autonomous devices that use various energy sources to power the network. A Wireless Linux Cluster was developed to provide the necessary communication and computing capability to perform tasks related to planetary exploration using multiple collaborating rovers. The foundation of the wireless Linux cluster is a set of dual core Atom processors used for data processing and a wireless router. This paper provides a brief history on mars rover and examines procedures for setting up a wireless Linux cluster used for distributed mobile processing.