Researchers in the Departments of Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign developed a novel learning-based method so robots on extraterrestrial bodies can make decisions on their own about where and how to scoop up terrain samples. Researchers created a new way for autonomous landers to learn how to scoop quickly on a new material it encounters. A robot can learn how to scoop a new material with very few attempts.
The team used a robot in the Department of Computer Science at Illinois. It is modeled after the arm of a lander with sensors to collect scooping data on a variety of materials, from 1-millimeter grains of sand to 8-centimeter rocks, as well as different volume materials such as shredded cardboard and packing peanuts. The resulting database in the simulation contains 100 points of knowledge for each of 67 different terrains, or 6,700 total points.
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