The Astrobotics Digger is an early version of the company's longer-range plans for moon-rolling robots.
Artist's rendition of the Astrobotic lunar digger in operation on the moon's surface.Astrobotic Technology Inc. has begun testing the robot it built to win a NASA competition to develop the most effective excavator for missions to the moon.
The winner of the NASA Regolith Excavation Challenge, which will take place Oct. 17 and 18 at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley will get $500,000 toward the development of the ‘bot that can dig and dump the largest volume of simulated lunar dirt during a 30-minute period.
Competitors must dig at least 330 pounds of dirt under moon-like conditions of limited power and bandwidth. Remote operators drive most of the entries, but have to deal with a four-second time delay designed to mimic the light-speed lag in radio communications between the Earth and the Moon.
Astrobotic’s entry, developed with help from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, is two feet tall and three feet on each side, with a laser scanner from SICK, Inc. on the top to measure distance inside the 13-ft.-square competition space.
The company was formed by CMU roboticist William “Red” Whittaker and is focused on developing a robot to win the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize lunar/teams/astrobotic that will be awarded in May 2011 for the robot design that would best suit the requirement of a rolling, remote-operated TV studio that could send high-def pictures back from lunar missions.
A statement from the company said Astrobotic will continue to test its entry in the Excavation Challenge using the “Regolith Simulant Testbed” that is being supplied to competitors by the California Space Authority, which is co-hosting the contest. Regolith is the term for soil covering a planet, moon or asteroid.
More advanced digging and mobility functions will be added to the digging unit later.
Source By : www.roboticstrends.com
