2017/01/25 by Himangshu Kalita, Kalita, Himangshu, Ravi Teja Nallapu +5
Computer Science · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence #Robotic Path Planning Algorithms #Robotics (cs.RO)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1701.07553
openalex publication_date 2017/01/25 · openalex created_date 2022/10/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The application of GNC devices on small robots is a game-changer that enables\nthese robots to be mobile on low-gravity planetary surfaces and small bodies.\nUse of reaction wheels enables these robots to roll, hop, summersault and rest\non precarious/sloped surfaces that would otherwise not be possible with\nconven-tional wheeled robots. We are extending this technology to enable robots\nto climb off-world canyons, cliffs and caves. A single robot may slip and fall,\nhowever, a multirobot system can work cooperatively by being interlinked using\nspring-tethers and work much like a team of mountaineers to systematically\nclimb a slope. A multirobot system as we will show in this paper can climb\nsur-faces not possible with a single robot alone. We consider a team of four\nrobots that are interlinked with tethers in an 'x' configuration. Each robot\nsecures itself to a slope using spiny gripping actuators, and one by one each\nrobot moves up-wards by crawling, rolling or hopping up the slope. If any one\nof the robots loses grip, slips or falls, the remaining robots will be holding\nit up as they are anchored. This distributed controls approach to cliff\nclimbing enables the system to reconfigure itself where possible and avoid\ngetting stuck at one hard to reach location. Instead, the risk is distributed\nand through close cooperation, the robots can identify multiple trajectories to\nclimb a cliff or rugged surface. The benefits can also be realized on\nmilligravity surfaces such as asteroids. Too fast a jump can result in the\nrobot flying off the surface into space. Having multiple robots anchored to the\nsurface keeps the entire system secure. Our work combines dynamics and control\nsimulation to evaluate the feasibility of our approach. The simulation results\nshow a promising pathway towards advanced development of this technology on a\nteam of real robots.\n