Dog-shaped robot to perform sensitive tasks on the moon

Release Date:
May 13 2022 7:30 GMT

Updated: May 13, 2022 9:30 GMT

Researchers at the ETH Research University in Zurich and Zurich, Switzerland, have created a quadruple robot in the shape of a dog to perform the task of a robot explorer on the moon.

The robot has reached the final stage of the competition to find resources in space.

The robot’s long-distance goal is to find the moon’s south pole.

The Moon’s South Pole is expected to contain useful resources such as minerals, frozen water and oxygen stored in rocks, and to find them, lunar missions require a robot capable of withstanding difficult conditions.

The robot can perform sensitive tasks in areas where movement is difficult, and its ability to use light measuring instruments is hampered by low angles of sunlight and thick dust layers and temperature fluctuations.

The European Space Agency and the European Space Resources Discovery Center have called on European and Canadian engineering teams to develop robots and instruments capable of locating the moon’s south pole in a specific area between the Fasten and Schumacher craters.

The lunar module “Climps” is one of 13 vehicles participating in the competition, and it resembles a dog, can move semi-automatically on all fours, and has many tools that differentiate the types of rocks. .

The robot technology in the Glimpses project is based on the Animal Robot model developed by ETH, which includes tools for chemically analyzing rocks and differentiating rock types, as well as a camera with a microscope and magnifying lens.

Florian Kehl, chair of the University of Zurich research team, said: “The Climps succeeded in their first test with 13 other robots and excelled at navigating through a satellite prepared for competition.”

“The test, which lasted two and a half hours, involved a robot crossing a strange surface and heading towards the lunar abyss.

During the test, the team was unable to see the lunar surface directly, but relied on process data and location data similar to the robot’s camera recordings and satellite data.

One of the difficulties was the delay in getting the control signals to the vehicle to simulate the actual conditions, and the communication with the robot was sometimes completely cut off, and at this point the robots with autonomous technology performed better.

Keehl pointed out that the robot “Climpsus” had some problems, but in the first round of the competition he was able to overcome them and move efficiently on the specified path, having four legs. Specific path.

Researchers are currently working to improve the robot’s ability to reach the finals in Luxembourg this year, with the participation of the 5 teams that reached the finals, the winning team won 50 550,000 to build its robot.