![]() “You have to use different technologies - you can’t use the same electronics that you use on Earth they have to be space qualified and space proof. With the moon 380,000 kilometers away, there’s little margin for error and Kuhn says it may take three or four generations before the lunar chimp is completely space proof. Robots also must offer the greatest strength and versatility for the least payload and have the ability to fix problems if something goes wrong. Not only must a robot be able to see, drill, grind, collect and even sieve, it needs to get around a hostile environment in extreme temperatures and in a vacuum. “It’s strong enough to walk around and carry its own weight – and it can carry 20 to 25 kg of additional weight.”īecause of the embedded electronics in the spine, the overall structure can be used as a 6-axis force-torque sensor, allowing it a range of movement that replicates human and animal mobility.įor those designing lunar robots, the list of specifications can be daunting. “We need much less activation for the knee – the knee can be much lower if we use the spine and it needs less force to move the robot. “We have an actuated spine – one of the first ever built – and for us it was very interesting how the spine influences the motion of the legs,” Kuhn said. Its biggest advantage, however, comes from the fact that like a real chimpanzees, it has a spine. The robot is also equipped with a distance sensor in the heel to anticipate the heel strike and two temperature sensors to compensate for the difference in temperature produced by its own electronics. When the environment improves, two legs allows you to get a better view over the field It also has six additional FSR-sensors used for collision detection. ![]() The sensors include a pressure sensor array of 43 individual force sensing resistor (FSR) sensors. However the robotic chimpanzee focuses on a sophisticated lomwer limb system that combines the torque and twist of the chimpanzee’s lower body.Īnd, like a real chimp, the robot’s feet and hands have multiple sensors and multiple points of contact. Previously, most multi-legged robots have been equipped with single-point contact feet for the sake of simplicity in design and control. This system gives us hints as to how much deviation there is between the four-legged and the two-legged walking and how humans evolved to walk on two legs.” “Currently, we are studying how to transfer from the four-legged to the two-legged motion pattern, which is very interesting. ![]() ![]() “The robot can walk up and down slopes of up to 20 degrees. “In general, we are very happy with the results,” he said. When the environment improves, two legs allows you to get a better view over the field.”įounded by the German space agency DLR, the project has also built Lunar craters in a lab to test the prototype. “They can choose: if the environment won’t let you move in a stable fashion on two legs they can choose four. The chimp’s greatest asset is that it can choose which form of movement best fits the situation. This change in posture and walking form interested us,” he said.įour-legged locomotion, Kuhn explained, might be stable – but for speed and agility on flat ground, bipedal walking has the edge. “For example, they have quite good quadrupedal walking abilities but they can also perform stand- up motion and walk on two legs – their ability to do this is greater than other animals. “We chose the ape because it allows us to study several locomotion modes,” DFKI researcher Daniel Kuhn told CNN. With renewed interest in moon exploration – in particular the remote possibility that deposits of helium-3, believed to be in greater concentration on the moon, could one day power nuclear fusion power plants on Earth – robots might be the ideal solution, especially to keep the costs down.Īnd a design from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (also known as DFKI) in Bremen, Germany, has landed on the chimpanzee as its model for unmanned lunar missions.ĭFKI hopes its design – called the iStruct Demonstrator and nicknamed “Charlie”- will capitalize on the inherent stability of the ape’s quadrupedal stance without losing the chimp’s versatility in climbing, grasping and moving over all types of terrain. Could the next moon mission involve a small step for an ape, but a giant leap for all robots?
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