[Tyler]

TRESSA: NASA's Rock Climbing Robot Project
     


NASA has published a new Tech Brief on TRESSA,
the Three-Robot System for Traversing Steep Slopes (TB login needed
to view full brief). TRESSA is a group of three autonomous robots that
work together to climb steep slopes. And by steep we mean up to 90
degree slope angles. Two of the robots, called Anchorbots, remaining at
the top and support the third robot, named Cliffbot, with tethers as it
negotiates the rocks. The Anchorbots dynamically adjust the tension of
the tethers, allowing Cliffbot to go up, down, or across the
slope. This is more complicated than it sounds as the Anchorbots have to
combine the amount of tether tension needed to offset gravitational
forces with anticipation of desired motion of Cliffbot. The robots also
monitor themselves and each other for faults and communicate any
potentially unsafe conditions to each other. For more detail on the
TRESSA project, see the 2007 JPL
paper, TRESSA:
Teamed Robots for Exploration and Science on Steep Areas (PDF
format).
   

http://robots.net/article/2930.html
     

[Bragi]

Very cool.