Robot or telerobotic exploration

SpaceNut · 2005-12-29 09:45:10

The space probes of recent years that have settled in orbit as well as on the surfaces of the planets have all done spectacularly. These front line soldiers have out lasted there primary missions and have even gone onto extended mission goals in most cases.
We have made stationary landers, rovers and many orbital platforms for the study of our solar systems. Some were very expensive while others were not.

We have talked about using airplanes and balloons to do more studies that are not in the relm from what is already there. But what other types of explores can we design. Here is an article that explores Microbot Madness: Hopping Toward Planetary Exploration sort of a cross between a kids balloon and a pogo stick.

Another plan may one day have their robotic successors hopping, according to its research team. Which call for a swarm of small, spherical robots the size of tennis balls to hop across another world exploring caves, nooks and other crannies that past mobile robots have been too large to study.

Rxke · 2005-12-29 18:35:00

IIRC there was a thread about these hoppers, about a year ago, they were just going to start field tests...

SpaceNut · 2005-12-30 06:02:27

Yes I do recall a thread where gashoppers were introduced into the discussions. The airplanes on mars had a jump jet sort of flair, using compressed CO2 to power its flight.

This particular one seems to be going in a completely different direction for how to be mobile. It is quite interesting to see all the novel approaches to solving how to be more mobile for longer periods of time. Allow for more terrain to be covered.

Rxke · 2005-12-30 06:49:22

No, I did mean this very design... But I can't find it back through searching....

The article went into more detail about the fuel-cell, # of hops etc...

Anyway, good to see they get some scope -and sizeable funding- it's an amazingly simple and elegant design, IMO... And I guess the time is right, Toshiba amongst others having built a reliable mini-sized fuelcell for laptops. When I initially heard about this I thought they would never be able to pull this off, because of the costs to device a small, reliable fuel-cell. But it increasingly looks like all they'll have to do is go of-the-shelf shopping around.

They should auction them on eBay, 1000 microrobots @ some thousand dollars apiece could partially pay for their launch... No matter you couldn't steer 'your' bot, I bet a good amount wealthy geeks would gladly pay some serious cash to have a tiny robot, with their name engraved on Mars... Funding exploration the 'fun' way....

SpaceNut · 2005-12-30 08:03:42

A system to shift weight at the bottom of the hopper before each launch would give it some direction control and if the weight is shifted at the top of the arc it to would make some course corrections possible. Most likely it would have a small gyro to help in stabilizing it which would mean powering it is going to be the bigger problem.

Grypd · 2005-12-30 16:54:31

A gyroscope of that size would not be too difficult to construct and nor would it need a drastic amount of the power output of the fuel cell. But is a gyroscope truly needed as it is possible to construct by design a means to have the heaviest part of the robot always point down just by design, Controlling in flight is not too necassary either with the direction and distance before launch controllable too.

Fuel cells of the required size are available and they have the power available to operate the system and still work as long as the fuel was available. Still the small size will always mean these type of robots have a useful life of only about a week at most.

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#1 2005-12-29 09:45:10

Re: Robot or telerobotic exploration

#2 2005-12-29 18:35:00

Re: Robot or telerobotic exploration

#3 2005-12-30 06:02:27

Re: Robot or telerobotic exploration

#4 2005-12-30 06:49:22

Re: Robot or telerobotic exploration

#5 2005-12-30 08:03:42

Re: Robot or telerobotic exploration

#6 2005-12-30 16:54:31

Re: Robot or telerobotic exploration

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