Scientists test robots at poles, aim for planets
Solar-powered robot Hyperion, 2001.
(Credit: The Field Robotics Center at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute.)
For some years, scientists have been testing robots they say could take exploration of the moon and planets to a new level. Dante is a prototype robot tested in the 1990’s in Antarctica.
David Wettergreen: We spent about a week hauling the robot up to the rim of Mt. Erebus.
That’s David Wettergreen of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. He said Dante was designed to descend into Mt. Erebus – an active volcano in Antarctica.
David Wettergreen: No one had ever been to the bottom of the crater, and we got Dante set up on the rim and began the descent into the crater, and in that first expedition for the robot we broke the fiber-optic cable in the tether, and had to drag the robot back out.
Wettergreen and his team went on to develop successful prototypes, including a solar powered robot called Hyperion in 2001 – designed for places with extended sunlight – like the poles of Earth or Mars, or the moon.
David Wettergreen: It actually reasons about the terrain, so it reasons where shadows will be and it plans its path either to avoid shadows. Or it can move itself into position where it’s able to collect lot of energy from sun, charge its batteries, dart through shadows where it doesn’t get any input, then get out to far side where it can start charging again.
Hyperion proved the concept of sun-synchronous navigation on Devon Island. At 75° North latitude, this location is well above the Arctic Circle (66.5°N). This location was chosen because of the terrain and the 24-hour sunlight in summertime.
Our thanks today to NASA, in celebration of the International Polar Year.
