Folding Robot Can Drop And Roll On Any Planet - Without A Parachute

Team of engineers from NASA and University of California, Berkeley have teamed up to develop unique folding robots that can survive lengthy drop on any planet and then began rolling like it rules the land. We'll give you no extra marks for guessing that this would be immensely useful in all the upcoming space missions where we put machines on other planet's surface. Landing the robots safely against all the odd conditions has remain one of the top challenges for all the Mars Missions taken up by NASA in the recent times.

The new robot looks like a complicated structure right out of an origami class. It's got a bunch of cables connecting randomly located rods hosting complicated electronics. But make no mistake - these are very specialised robots that have been specially designed to withstand high speed impact; at about 30 miles/hour without any additional support. The robot can be dropped from a height without parachutes and it will start rolling on the surface by pulling and releasing the cables in a synced fashion.


Robots with 'tensegrity-structures' have been considered for space missions for quite some time, but the researchers did not have the computing algorithms that can help model them. However, with the availability of these algorithms, researchers can easily build structures on their computers and even carry out tests to see if the structures can work.

Regular readers of CrazyEngineers may remember our article about the NASA's Super Ball Bot may land on Titan - Saturn's largest moon that uses the same concept. NASA is building it for their future mission to Titan - the largest moon of Saturn. Research team would want to send two of such bots to a distant planet and have one of them controlled by the Internet - with people telling the robot where it should go. All of it sounds very interesting and we promise to keep an eye on the updates for all of you.

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