Researchers at ETH Zurich have begun testing a group of dog-like robots that may be used to explore the moon in the future.
These robots are three modified robots from the Swiss robotics company ANYmal, which we have mentioned a few times before. The idea behind these robots is that they could assist each other if one of them stops functioning. One of the robots is specialized in mapping the landscape and finding minerals, while another is specialized in identifying the discovered minerals. The third robot can perform both tasks but not as precisely as the specialized robots. In the future, the researchers plan to add more robots to the group, possibly robots that can fly and/or move on wheels.
Using multiple robots has two advantages, säger forskaren Philip Arm från ETH Zurich och fortsätter, the individual robots can take on specialized tasks and perform them simultaneously. Moreover, thanks to its redundancy, a robot team is able to compensate for a teammate’s failure.
The robots from ETH Zurich have previously won the “ESA-ESRIC Space Resources Challenge,” a competition organized by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC) to find solutions for mineral prospecting on the moon. Above is a video clip where you can take a closer look at the small robot group.
