NASA Toy-like Robots Probing the Poles
If you had happened to be in the right place, at the right time, in Alaska late June, you may have seen three toy-sized robots crisscrossing the snow in what could only be a race between three children. However, if you had more information, you would have known that these two feet long by one foot wide robots were actually equipped with sensors, microprocessors and cameras that allow the robots to traverse autonomously and unmanned in an attempt to better understand what is melting our polar ice caps.
Working with scientists at Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania, Ayanna Howard, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and former member of NASA’s Mars technology program team, created the toy-like robots to be able to traverse terrain often too dangerous for those living breathing scientists who prefer not to fall down massive crevices.
"After working with robots for the Mars technology program, I thought a similar type of rover could be used to collect multiple science measurements on this planet," said Howard
"My research colleagues at Penn State agreed that we could possibly advance what we know about how changes in climate affect ice sheets and glaciers using robots to trek landscapes with volatile cracking or shifting ice where scientists have difficulty going to gather important measurements. The robots could also fill gaps in the existing network of satellites and weather station sensors that occurs due to immobility of the grounded station sensors or remote location and limited resolution of the satellites. Essentially, the robots could act as 'mobile weather stations,' able to travel to capture real-time data at the spot where change is occurring."
Howard and researchers from the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, tested the SnoMotes as they are called, in June upon the Mendenhall Glacier, in a multi-textured environment that featured ice, deep snow, crevices and patches of ice that had been melted by the sun, known as sun cups.
"Though our analysis of the data from the field test will not be complete until this fall, the robots did well spanning the terrain without difficulty and we were able to communicate with them from the 'base camp' without any noticeable errors," said Howard.
"This is the third rendition of the robot," said Howard. "In the development stage, I considered the nature of ice and snow and how people actually walk on both. The first version of the robot had legs. We then shifted to a hybrid leg and wheel design that allowed the wheels to maneuver out of snow patches if the legs became stuck. We finally thought about the other ways in which scientists travel on the icy arctic terrain, and decided to use a snowmobile-type design to solve the maneuverability problems."
Howard and colleagues Derrick Lampkin of Penn State and Magnus Egerstedt of Georgia Tech hope to create a low-cost final version of the SnowMotes that could be scalable into a larger network that institutions could use, with up to 40 of the robots spotted across the Arctic. The original prototypes were made from discontinued remote-controlled plastic snowmobile-shaped toys, in an attempt to keep them low-cost and environmentally friendly.
Posted by Josh Hill.
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http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/nsfc-ftn071508.php
Its a good thing we are open minded liberals that do not mind pole probing.
Posted by: Vivid Unicorn | July 19, 2008 at 09:11 AM