Transforming the Future of Space Exploration

In the quest to explore and understand the mysteries of our solar system, future planetary explorers will face many challenges. One of the most significant hurdles will be dealing with the lack of tools and equipment needed to carry out their duties. The first travelers will arrive on a barren world with nothing but what can be carried on their own spacecraft. And every gram of weight that is added to a spacecraft has a significant impact on its ability to launch, maneuver, and land on other planets.

This means that planetary explorers will have to be very selective in the equipment and tools that they choose to bring with them on their mission, and will most certainly not have everything that they could hope for. Researchers at MIT and the University of Denver think that part of the solution to this problem may involve tool reconfigurability. Towards this end, they have created a toolkit of parts that can be reconfigured in the field to build any number of robots, each capable of performing unique tasks. And when the job is complete, the robots can just as easily be disassembled so that the parts can be repurposed in yet another robot design.

Based on the team’s observation that a worm can move like many different body parts — like arms, legs, backbones, or tails — they developed a system consisting of several types of parts, including worm-inspired robotic limbs. Dubbed WORMS (Walking Oligomeric Robotic Mobility System), the building blocks can be rapidly rearranged to build, for example, a large robot capable of transporting heavy solar panels, or a small, six-legged spider bot that can fit into tight spaces and drill for water.

The present building blocks consist of motors, sensors, computers, limbs, and batteries. Winches, balance sensors, and drills are among the additional elements that the team intends to design for the WORMS system in the future. For the pieces to come together and perform useful tasks, software is also needed to coordinate between the appendages and provide control logic. The team developed the software to handle these functions, then used it with the WORMS building blocks to create a six-legged robot. The team demonstrated that they could rapidly assemble and disassemble this robot in the field, and also that it was quite capable of walking over level ground.

At present, the worm-like appendages are a bit over three feet in length and weigh in at 20 pounds. Recognizing that some jobs, especially transporting heavy equipment, will require larger, sturdier robots, the team is planning to build a larger generation of building blocks. While these will be heavier, and therefore a bit more challenging to work with in the field, that problem may be mitigated by the environment. On the moon, for example, a 20 pound weight would feel the same as about three pounds on Earth.

While the WORMS system certainly shows promise, there are some areas that have been identified that would need to be updated before it could be deployed for real use cases. The mechanism that locks the blocks together, for example, needs to be upgraded for enhanced reliability, longevity, and usability. There are also a whole host of other issues to consider — like thermal protection, radiation protection, vacuum exposure, and dust mitigation — before WORMS can move beyond the prototype stage. Nevertheless, there are many very appealing aspects of this reconfigurable robotics platform that may just land it on another planet in the future.