JAXA is currently conducting research on technologies necessary for lunar exploration. One of the studies being conducted - outdoor demonstration of position detection technology using camera-visible light communication - is described below by MAKI Ken-ichiro.

"For a robot to move on the Moon, it needs to know its own position as well as the direction and distance to its target point. On the Earth's surface, robots use landmarks such as buildings and radio-based positioning via GPS or other means to determine their positions. There is no such environment on the Moon, though, so self-positioning is very difficult. To solve this problem, we employed Casio's Picalico® visible light communication technology. We are now conducting joint research with Casio to apply this technology to lunar rovers and other robots."

In simplest terms, Picalico® works by installing multiple special light sources, capturing their light with cameras, processing the data obtained therefrom and then using the data in calculations to arrive at high-precision measurements. These cameras may, for instance, be installed on a rover to enable positioning in the lunar environment.

"In our demonstrations, we used a field with inclines and uneven surfaces to simulate the lunar surface and a wheeled instrument setup instead of a rover. The demonstrations we carried out to evaluate accuracy on such surfaces ultimately demonstrated satisfactory accuracy with an improved algorithm."

MAKI expanded on the future prospects of such research: "There are some environments on Earth such as tunnels where radio waves cannot reach so there is no means of positioning. If this technology is applied to such environments, robots will be able to inspect tunnels while keeping track of their own positions. We hope to use the results of this research to contribute to various Earth-side industries as well."