In an extreme environment, such as Mars or a volcanic area, mobile robots have been used in scientific missions, or as precursors for a future manned mission. The robot called a planetary exploration rover is managed by a space-qualified, radiation-hardened, and low-clock onboard computer, and autonomously travels over challenging terrain. For more about this … [Read more...] about Uncertainty-Aware Trajectory Planning: Using Uncertainty Quantification and Propagation in Traversability Prediction of Planetary Rovers
Mobile robots
Superresolution of Lunar Satellite Images for Enhanced Robotic Traverse Planning: Maximizing the Value of Existing Data Products for Space Robotics
Lunar exploration missions require detailed and accurate planning to ensure their safety. Remote sensing data, such as optical satellite imagery acquired by lunar orbiters, are key for the identification of future landing and mission sites. Here robot- and astronaut-scale obstacles are the most relevant to resolve; however, the spatial resolution of the available image data is … [Read more...] about Superresolution of Lunar Satellite Images for Enhanced Robotic Traverse Planning: Maximizing the Value of Existing Data Products for Space Robotics
Structured Ecological Cultivation With Autonomous Robots in Agriculture: Toward a Fully Autonomous Robotic Indoor Farming System
To support the hypothesis that embracing robotics has the potential to address farming challenges and, at the same time, replace large and complex farm machinery, this article proposes designing a farm around a heterogeneous robotic system dubbed Structured Ecological Cultivation With Autonomous Robots in Agriculture (SPECULARIA). This multirobot system has mobile robots … [Read more...] about Structured Ecological Cultivation With Autonomous Robots in Agriculture: Toward a Fully Autonomous Robotic Indoor Farming System
Robotic Assessment of a Crop’s Need for Watering: Automating a Time-Consuming Task to Support Sustainable Agriculture
Agricultural robotics and automation technology plays an increasingly critical role across several crop production stages to improve sustainability (e.g., water use optimization). Robotics has been applied for remote and proximal sensing as well as physical sampling. The procedure of physical sampling and follow-on analysis of plant specimens, such as leaves or shoots, which is … [Read more...] about Robotic Assessment of a Crop’s Need for Watering: Automating a Time-Consuming Task to Support Sustainable Agriculture
Tensegristats: Lightweight Untethered Morphing Robots
Flexible and shape-shifting structures are common in nature. Creating shape-shifting machines using rigid components requires complex design work. Soft robotic attempts are closer to the muscular hydrostats they mimic but are slow and inefficient untethered and do not generally allow large-scale shape change between forms. Here we present the idea of “tensegristat” robots in … [Read more...] about Tensegristats: Lightweight Untethered Morphing Robots
