Astrum Space - How Wheels May Soon Become Obsolete For Mars Exploration

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

In H.G. Wells novel, The War of the Worlds, Mars is the home of an advanced alien race. These super-intelligent beings had access to gigantic robotic walkers which could stride across the terrain with ease, blasting all in their path, intent on conquering our Earth. Fortunately, our explorations of Mars have thus far not found any signs of hostile aliens plotting world domination aboard giant walkers, but robotic walkers on Mars might be not be a thing of science fiction for much longer. Not if NASA and Boston Dynamics have anything to do with it. Thanks to these two organizations, walking robots on Mars could soon be a reality, and they are already more advanced than you might think. I'm Alex McColgan,

and you're listening to the Astrum Podcast. Join with me today as we uncover the surprising advances that have been made in walking robotics, and how through autonomous AI, These robots could revolutionize our exploration and colonization of the red planet. And remember, these advances have already been made. But first, why is NASA interested in developing robots with legs? If you have been keeping up with the sort of robots that scientists have been sending to Mars, you will notice that they all have a fairly similar design. Spirit, opportunity, curiosity, perseverance.

Even the true or wrong rover deployed on Mars by China are six-wheeled rovers with large bodies, some over two meters tall, carrying various kinds of scientific equipment and cameras. This is because form follows function. Wheels are an easy way to help a robot to get around on a flat surface, and a large body allows for more scientific equipment to be carried. However, wheels also come with downsides, in that they limit the kinds of places these robots can explore. Spirit's mission suffered a serious setback in 2009, when it got stuck in soft sand, a trap

it never escaped from. Although scientists wanted to continue using it as a stationary platform to study the area immediately around it, getting stuck was essentially the end of the mission for Spirit, especially when it drained its batteries trying to get out. A similar thing happened to Opportunity in 2005, although fortunately in its case, Opportunity was able to escape. from wheel spinning after just over a month of being stuck. However, there was also a point in the first year of Opportunity's mission

where it was exploring endurance crater. The exposed rock in the sides of this crater were ideal for answering questions about the history of water on Mars. Opportunity had limits on how steep a surface it could drive on, about 30 degrees, and it was uncertain whether it could get out of the crater again if it drove into it. In the end, scientists decided to send Opportunity into the crater anyway.

As it happened, Opportunity was able to drive out and continued exploring Mars's surface for another 15 years. But all that science wouldn't have been possible if Opportunity's wheels had meant it couldn't escape endurance. Now compare that with the kinds of robots Boston Dynamics is creating, like Big Dog. Imagine a machine a little over half the height of a man, and nearly a amazing, a robot's Boston dynamics is creating, like Big Dog. nearly a meter long, with four curved black legs that seem almost animalistic, like something from nature.

A strange merging of machine and living thing. Imagine this creature traversing easily with dainty, deer-like steps over snow, debris, and ice. This is Big Dog. Created by Robotics'Bossom Boston Dynamics in 2005, Big Dog was so stable you could try to kick it over while it was standing on ice, and it would still be able to keep its balance without falling. There's a video Boston Dynamics did of it managing just that. And that's not the only incredible robot Boston Dynamics has made. You should check out their parkour robot, Atlas, a humanoid robot capable of running, jumping,

and climbing over obstacles in a way that almost feels human. And you can really imagine the advantages that legs can offer. in these kind of situations. Big Dog could easily traverse powdery conditions, even up slopes, allowing it to explore a greater range of areas in an environment like Mars. However, it was a later version that caught Nassizai. Let's talk about Spot. Where Big Dog is a large black mastiff, Spot is a smaller yellow greyhound, coming only up to your knee. It has slender legs, a lean body. and interchangeable arms or devices that can attach to its back. Spot is a walking robot originally designed for tasks on Earth,

such as data collection and mapping spaces for industry, or going into dangerous areas that humans can't enter, such as in areas that are heavily irradiated. It's able to carry weights of up to 14 kilograms and can perform repetitive tasks, and walk upstairs, over gravel, and other uneven surfaces. It comes with cameras that can see all around it, mapping the space. If it falls over, it can self-write itself even from being completely upside down.

Unlike the rovers on Mars, which have top speeds of about 0.2 kilometres per hour, Spot can travel at around 5.8 kilometers per hour. But the cleverest part about it is its intelligent AI. By using information it sees in its cameras, Spot is able to create a 3D image in its onboard computer, and it can use that information to figure out the best way to travel over obstacles. You don't necessarily control it, instead you tell it where you want to go, and it figures out for itself the best way to get there, actively avoiding obstacles if they present themselves.

If it does start to fall, it can figure out what it needs to do to stop falling, and moves its legs to arrest its fall in a way that almost feels alive. It is this autonomy, mixed with spots incredible range of versatility and movement that makes it ideal for exploration of other planets. It's not possible to directly control a robot on another planet. The distance is so great that there would be several minute lags between a scientist sending a signal and the robot taking an action. So a lot of decision-making needs to be done by a robot on location.

This is true of the rovers NASA has sent to Mars already, like spirit and opportunity, and However, Spot can take this to another level. Thanks to a collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Spot is proving to be capable of working with a series of other robots to explore Martian Analog caves here on Earth, completely independent of humans. They are exploring the whole layout on their own, choosing their path, walking over obstacles. They can handle pitch-black lighting conditions, smoke, dust, and even water. They can recognize points of interest and investigate them.

One area of Mars and the Moon that NASA would like to explore in future are caves. Caves are scientifically interesting for several reasons. They allow scientists to see deep into the geology of a planet without needing to do any drilling, which is a difficult process, helping them tell what the structure is like, or whether water was ever present. They are sheltered ecosystems. All things on the surface might be eroded over time by wind or cosmic radiation, caves offer shelter, preserving anything scientifically interesting for us to find.

NASA's Braille program is even interested in whether any bacteria might have survived in such an environment on Mars, or at least if the remains might be there. Finally, this shelter and protection from radiation also make them a good location for future human colonization, making it all the more important for us to map them out. or any future human missions. Currently, we struggle to explore caves on other planets. Taking photos from space only really tells us information about maybe the entryway. Scientists can't map cave structures from orbit.

Rovers-like opportunity would struggle to explore such a cave, as the ground would probably not be very flat. The passageway might become too narrow for a two-meter-wide robot, and the terrain would be uncertain. And perhaps worst of all, signal to Earth would be very flat. would quickly become blocked by all that rock, meaning a robot that requires any human input would not get very far. In other words, a robot that was sent to explore a cave on Mars would need to be able to go in

and explore the entire thing on its own, with no prior knowledge of what the terrain might look like in there. It would need to see and map the terrain, decide how to move around it, and finally bring that information back out to the surface. And this is what NASA's jet propulsion laboratory and Boston Dynamics are currently doing. By combining Nebula, an advanced decision-making AI, with a versatile platformer spot, NASA is hoping to one day be able to send several of these robots to a cave on Mars or the moon and have them go in and map it, independently organizing themselves by working as a group,

using cameras, robotic arms, and scientific equipment to identify objects of scientific interest, laying that information to each other, and then sending in the robot carrying the right equipment to further study and photograph the object of interest. There is currently no set date when Spot would be ready to explore the moon or Mars, this is still in the testing phase. However, this technology offers a tantalizing possibility. One day, rather than Martians sending robotic walkers to Earth to help them colonize it, it might be us sending robots to help us colonize there.

So, there we have it. Our robotic walk is on Mars? Not yet, but there soon may well be. Well, that's all we have time for today. I hope you've enjoyed listening to this podcast on Boston Dynamics Spot Rover. If you like what you've heard, please feel free to follow us for more podcasts on other fascinating space topics. But for now, I'm Alex McColgan, and this has been Astrum.

All the best, and see you next time. Thank you.