University of Arizona research team, which is mapping out a plan to harvest the moon's resources with a new excavation technique using autonomous robot swarms to mine lunar resources, has received a USD 500,000 two year grant from NASA to advance space mining methods. Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Jekan Thanga led group has developed a system called HEART to help with their research. It is an autonomous robotic system that will train robots to work together and improve over time. It is also a system that cooperates with humans. So the humans work together with the system to identify new scenarios, identify with unknown scenarios, and then work together to sort of figure out a suitable solutionThey said To break this rock it takes enough power to light a 100 watt light bulb for about an hour. So if we're going to do the same thing on the moon, we’re going to need more efficient processes. To mine and drill on the moon, they have developed a process that can drill through rock five times faster than any other method.The team still considers humans a critical part of space exploration, but these robot swarms could free up astronauts to focus on other mission elements.
University of Arizona research team, which is mapping out a plan to harvest the moon's resources with a new excavation technique using autonomous robot swarms to mine lunar resources, has received a USD 500,000 two year grant from NASA to advance space mining methods. Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Jekan Thanga led group has developed a system called HEART to help with their research. It is an autonomous robotic system that will train robots to work together and improve over time. It is also a system that cooperates with humans. So the humans work together with the system to identify new scenarios, identify with unknown scenarios, and then work together to sort of figure out a suitable solutionThey said To break this rock it takes enough power to light a 100 watt light bulb for about an hour. So if we're going to do the same thing on the moon, we’re going to need more efficient processes. To mine and drill on the moon, they have developed a process that can drill through rock five times faster than any other method.The team still considers humans a critical part of space exploration, but these robot swarms could free up astronauts to focus on other mission elements.
