The paper presents a deep‑learning crater detection algorithm (CDA) based on the OWLv2 Vision Transformer, fine‑tuned with Low‑Rank Adaptation on a manually labeled IMPACT dataset. It optimizes a combined loss of CIoU for localization and contrastive loss for classification, achieving a maximum recall of 92.6% and precision of 71.4% on lunar images. The method demonstrates reliable crater detection under varied illumination and rugged terrain, supporting safer lunar landings.
By Patrick Bauer, Marius Schwinning, Florian Renk, Andreas Weinmann, Hichem Snoussi
The paper proposes a method to adapt the Depth Anything V2 (DAV2) zero‑shot relative depth model for estimating lunar surface height. By fine‑tuning DAV2 with publicly available stereophotogrammetry‑derived DEM data, the authors achieve a significant performance boost over the unadapted zero‑shot model. This improved estimator can provide more accurate relative height information useful for hazard detection in future ESA lunar landings.
By Patrick Bauer, Marius Schwinning, Melanie Siegel, Andreas Weinmann, Hichem Snoussi
arXiv:2608. 09350v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been collecting high-resolution images (at around 0.
By Cameron Kelahan, Daniel Angerhausen, Adam Lesnikowski, Valentin T. Bickel
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been collecting high-resolution images (at around 0. 5-2 meters per pixel linearly with its Narrow Angle Camera) of the Moon since 2009, amassing a large dataset of images and offering researchers the opportunity to study the surface of the Moon at unprecedented scale.
Precise rover localization is a prerequisite for autonomous lunar exploration, yet the absence of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals and the cumulative drift of local localization methods severely constrain long-range missions. Cross-view localization provides a promising drift-free global solution by matching rover-view and satellite-view imagery.
arXiv:2601. 03040v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: A fundamental requirement for full autonomy is the ability to sustain accurate navigation in the absence of external data, such as GNSS signals or visual information.
By Arup Kumar Sahoo, Itzik Klein
arXiv:2608.30471v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: This paper investigates the problem of position estimation of unmanned surface vessels (USVs) operating in coastal areas or in the archipelago. We prop...
By Bertil Grelsson, Andreas Robinson, Michael Felsberg, Fahad Shahbaz Khan
The paper introduces a multimodal foundation model for lunar remote sensing, trained from scratch on SomBench—a dataset of nearly two million co‑registered tile bundles across 11 modalities at 1 m and 100 m resolutions. The model extends the TerraMind masked‑token architecture with lunar‑specific features such as explicit acquisition geometry and joint training of two spatial scales, and employs FlexiViT patch embeddings for adaptable patch sizes. Evaluation on crater detection, irregular mare patch segmentation, and polar ice prospectivity regression shows that the pretrained model matches or surpasses ImageNet‑pretrained baselines, with notable label efficiency and effective adaptation via LoRA.
By Paolo Fraccaro, Gabby Nyirjesy, Daniela Szwarcman, Himanshu Patil, Vishal Gaur, Rohit Lal, Rachel A. Slank, Geoffrey Dawson, Hiyam Debary, Michael K. Barker, Andrew Annex, Vishnu Viswanathan, Zachary Morse, Ethan I. Schaefer, Nikolaos Dionelis, Ankur Kumar, Campbell D. Watson, Manil Maskey, Rebekah I. Dawson-Rigas, Juan Bernab\'e-Moreno, Rahul Ramachandran, Sujit Roy
arXiv:2609.13277v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Lunar orbital missions, such as Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Kaguya/SELENE, Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, and Lunar Prospector, among ot...
By Himanshu Patil, Gabby Nyirjesy, Rachel A. Slank, Vishal Gaur, Daniela Szwarcman, Paolo Fraccaro, Nikolaos Dionelis, Michael K. Barker, Andrew Annex, Vishnu Viswanathan, Zachary Morse, Ethan I. Schaefer, Hiyam Debary, Ankur Kumar, Rohit Lal, Geoffrey Dawson, Campbell Watson, Rebekah I. Dawson-Rigas, Manil Maskey, Juan Bernab\'e-Moreno, Rahul Ramachandran, Sujit Roy
MANTLE is a multi‑task adaptive network designed for planetary perception, featuring a shared DINOv2 backbone with separate heads for landform classification and boulder segmentation. Trained on HiRISE and MSL imagery, it achieved 92.56% accuracy on seven Martian terrain classes and a 0.753 IoU for boulder segmentation, with strong cross‑sol generalization. The framework follows the Modular Uplink Principle, allowing lightweight task‑specific heads to be trained on Earth and uplinked to the rover without retraining the core model.
By Pranav Durai, Gary Doran
arXiv:2609.13332v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Automated landslide segmentation on Mars is one of the important tasks for understanding its surface processes, and all will aid in future space explor...
By Leo Thomas Ramos, Sidike Paheding, Abel A. Reyes-Angulo, Rajaneesh A., Sajinkumar K. S., Angel D. Sappa, Thomas Oommen
Visual localization becomes extremely challenging in planetary-like terrains characterized by low texture, perceptual aliasing, harsh illumination, and sparse, weakly overlapping viewpoints induced by forward rover motion and unconstrained driving directions. Under these conditions, state-of-the-art image-to-image and image-to-map matching pipelines suffer significant performance degradation.