NASA
Tech Briefs: What is the purpose of the rovers?
Dr.
Paul Schenker: The general purpose of the all terrain exploration
task was to develop new rovers and supporting technology that could
go into more difficult terrain. Examples would be terrain that is
rough, and particularly, terrain that is sloped. Current rovers
have a hard time traveling through rather rocky, dense areas, or
up slopes that are more than 15-20 degrees. It’s now thought
that some of the most exciting planetary science will be near water
outflows at craters’ edges. We want to drive rovers up or
down to such an area to get to the interesting science.
NTB:
How have these rovers performed in clinical demonstrations?
Schenker:
They’ve done well. We basically first developed the technology
in the laboratory. That technology includes not only re-configurable
rovers ? meaning ones that could change their shape and the positioning
of their mechanical parts, their legs, structure, and wheels ? but
new algorithms that can take what the rovers see, literally, and
adapt their control and traction as they go into steeper areas.
It’s similar to how a human or a dog changes footing, squats
down, and gets prepared to go up a steep hill, or go down.
One of the things we first did was develop a small rover that we
actually called the All-Terrain Explorer, and we were able to go
into regions as steep as 50 degrees in slope. That was something
of a breakthrough and was enabled by on-board autonomous capabilities.
NTB:
How does a rover work?
Schenker:
We give the rover behaviors or skills whereby it can adapt when
it sees a region with its computer vision or 3D terrain mapping.
Then, it has a control routine whereby it changes its basic drive
strategy to deal with the surrounding conditions. So it’s
kind of an animal-like paradigm, but a rather intelligent one.
NTB:
Is there a newer prototype?
Schenker:
The more exciting aspect of this project, most recently,
is the development of something called the Cliff-bot. What’s
very exciting about this, is that it’s not one robot, but
three. This is a true robot team with distributed intelligence and
sensing. Two of the robots are at the top of the cliff and they
are referred to as the Anchor or Tether-bot, which assist the Cliff-bot..
There are tethers attached to the Cliff-bot itself forming a triangle
? two at the top and then the two tethers going down. The robot
that is going up and down the cliff is actively driving; it’s
not just being lowered. It actually has a set of distributed controls
that is enabling it to very carefully make decisions about how best
to drive down as it experiences changing forces in the cables and
the tethers. A good analogy would be a human climber with two expert
assistants.
What
is very exciting about that in terms of the applications of future
missions is the promise of a robot being able to go to these very
steep cliff edges where there might be mineral water outflows. Using
these rovers, we can a look where we’ve never being able to
go before.
We
are also working on a robot work crew. That is another similar development
where we have two robots as a true team that is designed to carry
around large payloads. They actually completely autonomously go
to and recognize the presence of the payload, dock with it, pick
it up, and carry it through natural occluded terrain, meaning you
have to do hazard avoidance and deposit it. Why would you care about
something like that? Because if you have that kind of robotic intelligence
then you have the potential for robots going in advance of humans
to Mars in the future and preparing the way.
NTB:
How long do you think it will be before the rovers are
utilized in planetary applications?
Schenker:
This is in the distant future. We have actually proved these concepts
out ? we’ve gone outdoors and we’ve done these things
in realistic simulated terrains ? but it will be many years, I think,
before we see NASA fly such technology - perhaps a good ten to 20
years. At JPL we are doing the advanced work, research and development,
and the basic enabling technologies needed like algorithms and new
mechanical designs, new sensory techniques, and the onboard autonomous
control. These things have been developed and they’ve been
integrated in the research prototypes, which have been operated
outdoors in realistic settings.
NTB:
Do you foresee any terrestrial applications?
Schenker:
Absolutely. The onboard intelligence, or the autonomy, is the research
basis for making robots smarter infield. I think we’ll see
the robot team idea have importance in things like military applications
and for search and rescue type applications. If someone is in trouble,
you can deploy a robot into a difficult hilly region. We haven’t
done anything like that for terrestrial applications. Our work as
been NASA-based, but these technologies are potentially important
for terrestrial and military applications.
NTB:
What other projects have you been involved with?
Schenker:
More recently I was the founding investigator of work on the SIDO
rover ? the Sealed Integrated Design and Operations rover. That
rover has been the advanced technology prototype supporting much
of the upcoming Mars exploration. Other things I’ve worked
on in the past include the development of robotic arms and advanced
control for planetary sampling. Another project is robot-assisted
microsurgery (RAMS), which is a system for dexterity-enhanced microsurgery.
It’s something where the surgeon makes a tele-operated input,
so when the surgeon’s hand moves, it scales the surgery down
by a factor of ten and it also filters out the tremors, allowing
doctors to do remarkable surgery. That technology is now on its
way to market applications.
NTB:
What is the goal of the Planetary Robotics Laboratory?
Schenker:
That is the place where we do the work for the future.
This is an organization of about 85 people whose interests include
the broad range of technology for both NASA and non-NASA robotics.
The expertise here spans machine vision, robotic navigation, onboard
robotic autonomy, operation interfaces, and mechanical design. So
you can think of us as the place you go to develop mobility and
robotics. I’m very excited because JPL has formed this organization
to bring our best and brightest together. Our basic roles here are
to find the basic systems that NASA will fly to the solar system.
That cover three areas: aerial ? like balloons, blimps, or aerobots
? planetary rovers, and sub-surface systems or cryobots which intelligently
burrow through ice layers and can explore underlying motions.
Resources:
Recent
interviews:
Dr.
Christopher Dellacorte
Oil-Free
Turbo Machinery Technical Leader
Glenn
Research Center
Sharon
K. Miller
Senior Research Engineer
Glenn Research Center
William
Berry
Deputy Director
Ames Research Center
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Soon: Updated Who's Who Archive
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