GoKawiilNASA rovers have revealed fascinating details and close-up images of Mars and the moon, but exploring other planets is slow. Most rovers are remotely controlled from Earth, and their careful, energy-efficient design limits how much ground they can cover.
Now, new research from the University of Basel, ETH Zurich, and the European Space Agency, published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Space Technologies, examines how robots that can "think" for themselves might help us search a planet's surface much faster.
Because rovers are built and guided in specific ways, exploration is often limited, making it hard to collect data across a large area of the planet. It also takes a while to transmit data across the vast distance between Earth and other celestial bodies.
"Rovers are designed for energy efficiency and safety, and to move slowly across hazardous terrain," the researchers said in a statement. "Here, we tested a different approach."
They experimented with a "semi-autonomous robotic explorer" that can investigate multiple targets and collect data without being told where to go.
"The results showed that semi-autonomous robots equipped with compact instruments could significantly speed up resource prospecting and the search for 'biosignatures' (i.e., evidence of life) on planetary surfaces," the researchers wrote.
So instead of humans controlling the robots via remote control over long distances, the researchers found that a robot outfitted with the right tools can navigate the surface and collect data at separate locations all by itself.
Testing autonomy
The researchers used a quadrupedal robot with a robotic arm. The robot, which they programmed to work without humans, carried a special camera and a spectrometer, designed to identify different materials.
"(The robot's) autonomy is limited to the execution of predefined commands, including locomotion, waypoint navigation, instrument deployment and data return," the researchers wrote in the paper.
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