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Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by allcentury on Friday January 16, 2015 @12:56PM (#8900400)
One time in a interview I got asked "If two robots are lost on mars and can't communicate with one another, how do they find each other? - please write a program outlining your thoughts"

I just want to be clear it took an actual space agency 11 years to pull this off and the company I interviewed at just backed up data for people.

Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by Someone on Saturday January 17, 2015 @08:33AM (#8904298)
If they can't communicate with each other, why would they want to meet?

Assuming Mars is featureless (if it has features, they can both climb Olympic mons, for instance, as Mike Ash already said) and they cannot leave Mars (if hey do, they could have agreed before to meet in a bar in, say, Paris), the solutions I can think of all are a bit impractical:

- both dig a hole to the center of Mars and wait there for the other to arrive.

- both spread themselves out over half the area of Mars.

- both self-replicate until they cover the surface.

- at least one of them starts annihilating Mars.

If they are allowed to discuss strategy beforehand, the following will work:

Both walk straight ahead along a great circle. When (not if; great circles cannot not intersect and not be the same) they meet the trail of the other, the slower one stops at the intersection, and waits for the faster one to return on its path.

Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by gus_massa on Saturday January 17, 2015 @10:33AM (#8904481)
It's easier to go to the North or South Pole, instead of the center of the planet, because you don't have to dig so much. As a guide you can use a gyrocompass that don't need a magnetic field for orientation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrocompass IANARS
Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by fargolime on Friday January 16, 2015 @01:17PM (#8900533)
I'm guessing one stays put and the other does a grid pattern search.
Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by ksrm on Friday January 16, 2015 @03:11PM (#8901352)
How does each robot decide whether to stay put or not if it can't communicate with the other?
Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by fargolime on Friday January 16, 2015 @09:12PM (#8903053)
Ha, good point. Could be pre-arranged. But if something can be pre-arranged, I like mikeash's answer.
Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by kaybe on Friday January 16, 2015 @01:34PM (#8900668)
Most of them have means to leave marks on the ground. Would that count as communicating for that exercise?
Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by IvyMike on Friday January 16, 2015 @03:01PM (#8901297)
That might work on the moon, but on Mars... http://www.universetoday.com/14892/mars-dust-storms/
Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by kaybe on Friday January 16, 2015 @04:58PM (#8902002)
>> Because the planet’s atmosphere is only about 1% as dense as Earth’s only the smallest dust grains hang in the air.

It should be possible to move a few larger rocks, maybe? Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity have robotic arms. Good image processing might or might not recognize patterns in the stones.

(http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/mars/vikinglander... for an example what most images I saw look like. I imagine it looks like this after a storm: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/mars/vikinglander...)

(Of course, compared to mikeash's answer, this is overengineering and only applicable if their conditions are not met (prearranged meeting point; we have a map and know our location))

Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by objectobject on Saturday January 17, 2015 @06:51AM (#8904154)
Start by solving the problem for two robots lost on Earth. Mars will be a bit more dusty but there is a much smaller search space to cover.
Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by mikeash on Friday January 16, 2015 @03:37PM (#8901521)
Both go to a prearranged meeting point (e.g. the north pole).

This seems too easy. Did I miss something?

Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by dpeck on Saturday January 17, 2015 @01:03AM (#8903608)
thought the same thing, the devil would be in the details of the robot itself, the "how to get to same place" bit seems fairly straightforward
Re:Lost Beagle2 probe found 'intact' on Mars by fargolime on Friday January 16, 2015 @09:11PM (#8903047)
Nice answer!