Slashdot Mirror
Inchworming Probe for Planetary Exploration
An anonymous reader writes: "Honeybee Robotics, a firm in New York's Little Italy, has designed a probe that can inchworm deep into the Martian crust or Europan ice shell without a cable to the surface for power or data. Totally autonomous. It's based on a system the company designed to weld steampipes below Manhattan. It's also just really cool."
More info from the company's website here. Includes images and related projects.
This article at spacedaily.com discusses options for cost effective remote unmanned drilling.
If I understand how GPS works, it wouldn't be useful at all in this case. GPS satellites essientially broadcast a strong signal to the ground, and this signal is measured by receivers, which then calculate their position. There is no communication in the other direction. In other words, GPS is very good at telling you where you are, but not capable of telling others where you are.
So even if GPS signals could penetrate the rubble, there would be no way to use that to locate people.
Agreed that GPS is of limited accuracy in this case, however the idea behind GPS in phones (which they are going to be doing in the near future as scary as that sounds) is that it relays your position over the cell control channels (i.e. if someone can make a phone call then it could be their position), so if someone was lost in the forest but could make a phone call they would know exactly where they were give or take 20 ft or so.