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NASA Could Explore Titan With Squishable 'Super Ball Bot'
An anonymous reader writes "IEEE Spectrum reports on a rover design being developed at NASA Ames Research Center: Super Ball Bot. The premise is that the rover's brain and scientific equipment would be suspended in the center of a structure made of rigid rods and elastic cables. The rods and cables would be deformable, allowing the rover to roll over complex terrain without damage. This design would be ideal for exploring a place like Saturn's moon Titan. Its atmosphere is thick enough that a probe could drop the rover from 100km above the surface, and it would survive the fall without a parachute. 'In a scenario studied by the team (PDF), the robot could be collapsed to a very compact configuration for launch. Once it reaches the moon, it would pop open and drop to the surface, flexing and absorbing the force of impact. By shortening and lengthening the cables that connect its rigid components, the ball bot could then roll about the surface. These same cables could be used to pull back parts of the robot, so that science instruments at the center could be exposed and used.'"
They shoot the super ball at the target and it bounces back with the data.
Anybody remember Sodaconstructor?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
"NASA Could Explode Titan With ..."
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Why wouldn't they send a UAV or UUV to go swim around in the oceans? I figured that was what was really interesting on Titan because it could contain life.
...followed by rolling, followed by rolling of the third type.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
NASA is extremely good at burning through gigabucks doing design studies, 99.9% of which are never built. This is just another one of those designs. I'll be impressed when I see it strapped to a rocket and sent up.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
"It works in Kerbal Space Program."
=Smidge=
The Elders tell of a young ball much like you. He bounced three metres in the air. Then he bounced 1.8 metres in the air. Then he bounced four metres in the air. Do I make myself clear?
Caution: Super Ball Bot may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds. Super Ball Bot contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at. Discontinue use of Super Ball Bot if any of the following occurs: itching, vertigo, dizziness, tingling in extremities, loss of balance or coordination, slurred speech, temporary blindness, profuse sweating, or heart palpitations. If Super Ball Bot begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head. Do not taunt Super Ball Bot.
It moves more like a tumbleweed than a superball. And I remember seeing many tumbleweeds around Roswell, NM, come to think of it.
Gently reply
You know, I hate war and death and whatnot but some of the technology and equipment of the military gives me what I like to call a War Boner.
This gives me a Science Boner. That's god damn cool, looks like something you'd read about in a science fiction book 20 years ago.
Hpw is it going to get to Titan in the first place? Do we have a rocket that can go that far these days?
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball
"These same cables could be used to pull back parts of the robot, so that science instruments at the center could be exposed and used."
Ok, for the first time ever a goat.sx reference would actually be appropriate.
Just from experience in moving spindly legs around rubble (camera tripod), I can see one potential issue the video doesn't make clear - the support struts can easily get wedged in rocks as they move around. Hopefully it can detect this before it bends a strut.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
At some point, we will be able to proudly declare that Earth has bounced its balls off Uranus.
One rule of engineering success is less complexity, fewer moving parts.
Another rule is redundancy.
This project pits them against each other. Where a proposed solution meets contradictory design goals you discover either disaster or elegance.
The greatest and most ancient tool employed by all self improving systems -- even life, neural networks, and science itself -- is to throw things against the wall and see if they stick. This ball bounces, plops, or rolls. I'll be interested to see if can stick, as nature's ameobic design has before.
Hmm. Well, then you're going to need to a covering then otherwise the bot will just be a collection of sticks in the mud. I have no doubt their genetic algorithms will emerge movement strategies; However, I noticed that all the test cases and simulations show hard surfaces. Strange if you consider the composition of the dunes and shores you're targeting. Perhaps just deploying a bunch and hoping that at least one doesn't get stuck shortly after landing is enough redundancy? I'm not so sure myself.
Amoebas have semi-permeable coverings. A covering would mean that exposing the instruments would be a complicated process prone to failure, and filling up with material. Perhaps if in a starburst configuration each instrument could use a rod as a guide? Ah, but that's not the design proposed.
They say in the video they could have dozens of them operating together. Did anybody else think of old TV shows, and prepare to panic?
The Rover, "a floating white ball that could coerce, and, if necessary, disable inhabitants of The Village, primarily Number Six."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_(The_Prisoner)
If they come back to Earth like that old Venus probe, we're in trouble.
http://bionic.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Probe
(Yeah, I remember these episodes of the Six Million Dollar Man from when they came out. I strongly suspect they were not as good as the Prisoner.)
"Ruthlessly pursuing the idea that the accordion is just another instrument."
That is PRECISELY the first thing I thought of, and you beat me to the post. Man, that show freaked me out the first time I saw it, when I was a kid.
Proverbs 21:19
A few reasons spring to mind:
* Especially with a "messy" mobility system like this, reaction times matter. Granted, when directly overhead 100km only adds about a millisecond of minimum additional round-trip lightspeed lag, but most of the time your satellite will be considerably further away.
* your satellite is in orbit - meaning around 1/2 to 3/4 of the time the planet is between you and your brain, more if you're in a valley. Better hope you're not in a perilous situation when the cord gets cut, and you'll only have a few hours at a time of "brain link" at a time. You could extend that by orbitting higher, but that means longer "braindead" periods as well, and greater lag.
* bandwidth - you're navigating via computer vision system, and a live video stream is about as bandwidth-intensive as you can get. And more surface-to-orbit bandwidth comes with very definite power costs.
* and finally - What's the benefit? The brain is a solid-state system, and thus pretty much impervious to anything that doesn't damage the mechanical components. Moreover, offloading the the brain to an orbiter doesn't eliminate the need for a brain in the rover - it'll be a much simpler brain if all it's doing is passing data back and forth, but if it has enough horsepower to handle the real-time video compression you'd almost certainly want, it's probably got more than enough horsepower to actually run the rover directly.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
"We want information...information."
actually, that show was transported back in time. it was shot on titan
Rich
...is the actual name of a leading researcher in this area. He gave a rather fascinating Google TechTalk a few weeks ago. Well worth the time.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC