Science! By Ryan Whitwam Dec. 29, 2013 10:28 am
NASA has developed all sorts of innovative ways to land probes and rovers on alien worlds including Curiosity’s rocket sled and the impact-absorbing airbags of Mars Pathfinder. However, once the landing is over, the vehicle itself usually has a conventional wheeled rover design. NASA is investigating a way to explore other planets that doesn’t rely on the same old technology. The tensegrity ball looks like a jumble of tent poles, but it could be the framework for future rovers.
Despite being simple machines, there is a lot that can go wrong with wheels. They can get stuck on rocks, lose traction and stop spinning correctly, or become damaged by the terrain. If any of those things happens, the maneuverability of your rover could be seriously impacted, and it’s not like there is a NASA service center around the corner. The tensegrity ball is designed to protect a mission payload during landing in the same way an airbag would, but also provide an adaptable method of locomotion on the planet’s surface.
The contraption is made up of flexible rods and cables attached to motors that can alter the length and tension of the cables. This can change the structure’s rigidity to cushion a hard landing or set it rolling over the alien landscape. If the tensegrity ball can survive a landing, it should also be able to handle any hazards it encounters on the surface. Rolling off a cliff or running into a rock wouldn’t be any problem for a vehicle based on this design.
The versatility of this design is far superior, but working out a way to control it remotely (with long delays as commands are relayed) will be a challenge. With a conventional rover, you can simply send a command to roll along for a certain amount of time, stop, rotate, and so on. The tensegrity ball would be inherently more random as it bounces along the path and tumbles over rocks. NASA is working on a learning program to control these vehicles that could select the best option from multiple routes on the fly.
Missions based on the tensegrity ball could be sent to almost any location in the solar system by scaling the design up and down. NASA feels the Saturnian moon Titan would be an ideal first stop with its thick atmosphere that obscures the surface. The*tensegrity ball is*still in the prototype phase, but so were rovers at one point.
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Despite being simple machines, there is a lot that can go wrong with wheels. They can get stuck on rocks, lose traction and stop spinning correctly, or become damaged by the terrain. If any of those things happens, the maneuverability of your rover could be seriously impacted, and it’s not like there is a NASA service center around the corner. The tensegrity ball is designed to protect a mission payload during landing in the same way an airbag would, but also provide an adaptable method of locomotion on the planet’s surface.
The contraption is made up of flexible rods and cables attached to motors that can alter the length and tension of the cables. This can change the structure’s rigidity to cushion a hard landing or set it rolling over the alien landscape. If the tensegrity ball can survive a landing, it should also be able to handle any hazards it encounters on the surface. Rolling off a cliff or running into a rock wouldn’t be any problem for a vehicle based on this design.
The versatility of this design is far superior, but working out a way to control it remotely (with long delays as commands are relayed) will be a challenge. With a conventional rover, you can simply send a command to roll along for a certain amount of time, stop, rotate, and so on. The tensegrity ball would be inherently more random as it bounces along the path and tumbles over rocks. NASA is working on a learning program to control these vehicles that could select the best option from multiple routes on the fly.
Missions based on the tensegrity ball could be sent to almost any location in the solar system by scaling the design up and down. NASA feels the Saturnian moon Titan would be an ideal first stop with its thick atmosphere that obscures the surface. The*tensegrity ball is*still in the prototype phase, but so were rovers at one point.
More...
