The self-propelled robot has been created to slither through the rough, unknown, and extreme surfaces of our solar system's planets and moons.
's moon Enceladus in mind, which may have water beneath its icy crust. Whenever this mission happens, EELS would be ready to go deep down the thick icy surface to map and collect information on what lies beneath.
The creation of this one-of-a-kind robot prototype began in 2019. The team has been conducting field trials to test and refine the capabilities of the robots. Field tests were conducted in rough terrain on Earth, including the Athabasca Glacier in the Canadian Rockies, which serves as a model for alien icy moons. They've also tested it on other grounds, such as Mars Yard at JPL and a ski resort.It weighs about 220 pounds and stands 13 feet tall.
The concept also overcomes the issue of communication lag time between Earth and deep space. It can detect and recover from risk on its own. This is due to the EELS's ability to create a 3D map of its surroundings using built-in stereo cameras and lidar. The information obtained from these sensors and navigation algorithms will assist the robot in proceeding on the safest path.
The JPL team tested the hardware and software that allows the robot to operate autonomously during these field trials. In September, they will test the prototype at the Athabasca Glacier to investigate subsurface mobility. “We have a different philosophy of robot development than traditional spacecraft, with many quick cycles of testing and correcting. There are dozens of textbooks about how to design a four-wheel vehicle, but there is no textbook about how to design an autonomous snake robot to boldly go where no robot has gone before. We have to write our own. That’s what we’re doing now,” concluded Hiro Ono, EELS principal investigator at JPL.
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