NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has created a self-propelled, autonomous robotic snake designed to discover excessive extraterrestrial terrain. Its first-of-a-kind propulsion system means it will possibly boldly go the place no robotic snake has gone earlier than.
The robotic snake is named an Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor (EELS) and was impressed by a need to search for life deep in Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus.
In the mid-to-late-2000s, when the Cassini spacecraft despatched again to Earth pictures of Enceladus, one among Saturn’s 83 moons, scientists found it was energetic and hiding a salty ocean of liquid water beneath its crust, one thing that solely a handful of worlds are identified to own. What’s distinctive about Enceladus – which is sufficiently small to suit inside the size of the United Kingdom – is that it repeatedly sprays plumes of icy particles from that ocean, combined with water and easy natural chemical substances, into area.
Investigating these plumes, and the slim vents they escape from, are what prompted the event of EELS. Construction of the prototype started in 2019 and has been recurrently up to date. Since 2022, the JPL workforce has been conducting month-to-month subject checks to refine the robotic’s {hardware} and software program in order that it’s capable of function autonomously.
The present iteration of EELS is 13-ft (4-m) lengthy and weighs about 220 lb (100 kg). Its 10 similar, rotating segments use screw heads for propulsion and grip. The EELS workforce have experimented with completely different screws to be used in numerous terrains: 3D-printed plastic screws for looser terrain and sharper steel screws for ice.
The workforce has examined EELS utilizing a snowy ‘robot playground’ at a Southern Californian ski resort, at an indoor ice rink, and in sandy terrain. Because they’ve entered new territory with EELS, the testing course of has been tutorial.
NASA/JPL-CalTech
“We have a different philosophy of robot development than traditional spacecraft, with many quick cycles of testing and correcting,” stated Hiro Ono, JPL’s principal investigator. “There are dozens of textbooks about how to design a four-wheel vehicle, but there is no textbook about how to design an autonomous snake robot to boldly go where no robot has gone before. We have to write our own.”
Given the communication lag between Earth and deep area, EELS’ potential to function autonomously is vital. If it runs into an issue, it wants to have the ability to get well by itself with out counting on human help.
“Imagine a car driving autonomously, but there are no stop signs, no traffic signals, not even any roads,” stated Rohan Thakker, the mission’s autonomy lead. “The robot has to figure out what the road is and try to follow it. Then it needs to go down a 100-feet [30-m] drop and not fall.”
To help with autonomy, EELS makes use of 4 pairs of stereo cameras and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) to provide a 3D map of its environment. LiDAR determines vary by focusing on a floor or object with a laser and measuring the time it takes for the mirrored mild to return to the receiver. EELS makes use of this data to create navigation algorithms in order that it will possibly extra simply traverse difficult areas.
To check EELS’ mapping capabilities, final yr, the JPL workforce dropped the robotic’s head – the half that accommodates the cameras and LiDAR – right into a vertical shaft at Athabasca Glacier within the Canadian Rockies. They’ll return to the glacier in September with an up to date model of EELS to see the way it fared.
EELS’ closing kind will comprise 48 little motors (actuators) that can present extra flexibility. Many have built-in force-torque sensing, which can allow EELS to ‘feel’ how a lot strain it’s exerting on the terrain. This will assist it to navigate uneven surfaces in slim areas very like a rock climber does, shimmying upward or downward by pushing towards opposing partitions.
The subsequent step is to include scientific devices.
“Our focus so far has been on autonomous capability and mobility, but eventually we’ll look at what science instruments we can integrate with EELS,” stated Matthew Robinson, EELS mission supervisor. “Scientists tell us where they want to go, what they’re most excited about, and we’ll provide a robot that will get them there.”
EELS adaptability signifies that, other than Enceladus, the robotic snake can be utilized to discover Mars’ polar caps, or deep icy crevasses on our personal planet.
Still, it is a while until EELS will probably be slithering throughout the terrain of different planets. Scientists hope the robotic will probably be full by fall subsequent yr, nevertheless it is then anticipated to be a decade-long anticipate a spacecraft to taxi EELS to Enceladus.
The video beneath, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, exhibits EELS being examined in numerous environments.
Testing Out JPL’s New Snake Robot
Source: NASA/JPL