NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Robot SwarmsEngineers and interns at this NASA field center are building the prototype of a robotic rover that could go where no wheeled rover has gone before-into the dark cold craters at the lunar poles and across the Moon s rugged highlands-like a walking tetrahedron. With NASA pushing to meet President Bush's new exploration objectives, the robots taking shape here today could be on the Moon in a decade. In the longer term, the concept could lead to shape-shifting robot swarms designed to explore distant planetary surfaces in advance of humans. "If you look at all of NASA s projections of the future, anyone s projections of the space program, they re all rigid-body architecture," says Steven Curtis, principal investigator on the effort. "This is not rigid-body. The whole key here is flexibility and reconfigurability with a capital R."
Document ID
20050182005
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Morring, Frank, Jr.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 23, 2013
Publication Date
May 30, 2005
Publication Information
Publication: Aviation Week and Space Technology
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Co., Inc.
Volume: 162
Issue: 22
ISSN: 0005-2175
Subject Category
Spacecraft Design, Testing And Performance
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

Available Downloads

There are no available downloads for this record.
No Preview Available