A 3-legged robotic may in the future be hopping throughout the floor of asteroids, trying to find invaluable minerals. Often called the SpaceHopper, the bot was just lately put to the check on a zero-gravity plane flight.
The SpaceHopper program was first launched two and a half years in the past, as a scholar analysis mission at ETH Zurich college in Switzerland.
It is geared toward addressing the problem of effectively exploring low-gravity celestial our bodies reminiscent of asteroids and moons. Not solely would possibly such our bodies include much-needed substances like rare-earth metals, they may additionally assist scientists higher perceive the formation of the universe.
In its present kind, the SpaceHopper robotic consists of a triangular aerospace-aluminum physique with an articulated leg at every nook. Every of these three legs in flip has a knee and a hip joint – two motors transfer the hip through a differential drive mechanism, and one other motor strikes the knee.
ETH Zurich/Jorit Geurts
Onboard deep-learning-based software program controls the mixed actions of the legs, permitting the robotic to carry out a collection of particular features. These features embody initiating hops, protecting the bot’s physique appropriately oriented whereas in flight, and performing managed landings at predetermined places.
All 9 leg motors work collectively to launch the SpaceHopper excessive off the asteroid’s floor when leaping. Because the robotic is subsequently in flight, it maintains its upright orientation by selectively extending or withdrawing its legs to shift its heart of mass as wanted. Upon touchdown, its legs flex to soak up influence and to maintain the bot from falling over.
Preliminary assessments of those features had been carried out in an ETH Zurich lab, the place the robotic was hooked up to a counterweight and a spinning gimbal to simulate the low-gravity situations of the dwarf planet Ceres.
Late final 12 months, nonetheless, members of the coed group obtained to take the SpaceHopper on an Air Zero G parabolic flight hosted by the European House Company and French firm Novespace. In these sorts of flights, an Airbus A310 airliner flies in a collection of upward and downward arcs, producing brief durations of weightlessness inside the aircraft because it does so.
Nicolas Courtioux
Throughout the 2023 flight, the robotic repeatedly jumped off the ground of the plane – in a selected route – and stored itself appropriately oriented as soon as airborne. Highlights of the assessments might be seen within the video beneath.
It must be famous that an ETH Zurich group beforehand developed a 4-legged asteroid-hopping robotic referred to as the SpaceBok. The SpaceHopper’s three-legged structure is meant to scale back measurement and weight as in comparison with that design. In reality, at a complete weight of 5.2 kg (11.5 lb), the robotic may conceivably be carried in and deployed from a small unmanned CubeSat spacecraft.
Utilizing a hopping robotic for asteroid exploration
Sources: ETH Zurich, SpaceHopper