A key project of China's Natural Science Funds, "Research of fundamental theory and key technology for modeling, sensoring, navigation and control of the lunar probe system" was inaugurated in the Institute of Intelligent Machines, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), on Wednesday.

The project was ratified in Dec 2005, and will be undertaken by Institute of Intelligent Machines, CAS, Harbin Institute of Technology and Shenyang Institute of Automation, CAS.

Aiming to develop the positioning and navigation system for the lunar probe, the project sets forth the computation of the control of soft landing of the lunar explorer, positioning and navigation system based on electronic, light and force sensors and wireless sensor network technology, and two-level control strategy comprising remote control and regional self-control. In addition, an experiment base made up of numeric model, multimedia simulation, experimental ground and simulated lunar surface, will give full support to the moon probe project.

The project, headed by Institute of Intelligent Machines, CAS, is to be completed in four years.

(People's Daily May 12, 2006)