INSPIRE: Legged Locomotion for Desert Research

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This INSPIRE project is supported by the Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering, the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems, the Directorate of Geosciences, Division of Earth Sciences, and the Office of International and Integrative Activities. Sand and dust storms menace the world. They impact large human populations on nearly every continent, damage habitation, disrupt transportation, threaten agriculture, biodiversity, human health and life, and degrade the environment (desertification). A team of scientists and engineers is developing an autonomous legged robot research assistant, designed to operate within harsh desert environments for purposes of gathering heretofore unavailable measurements of wind and sand movement under conditions far too uncomfortable and dangerous for human presence. These data may offer new insights into dust production and its global effects that could significantly impact predictions of environmental degradation by climate change in drylands. At the same time, meeting the formidable mobility and perceptual capabilities arising from scientists' requirements will advance the foundations and practice of robotics. Ultimately, advances in control of dust emissions from soils made possible by this novel collaboration could prolong the sustainability of the agroecosystem and result in improved air quality of downwind population centers.Dust emission has traditionally been assumed to release sediment previously deposited in soil, but there is growing evidence that sand abrasion may actually produce significant quantities of new dust. Establishing sand seas as dust factories, rather than simply dust reservoirs represents a qualitatively new result that would cascade through aeolian and climate science. But the severe events of interest are hidden from existing conventional instruments and they pose presently insurmountable challenges to flying, wheeled or even tracked vehicles. Aeolian science needs legged machines to negotiate the steep, shifting slopes, and broken ground under the environmental conditions of interest. Steady running over simple terrain is a largely solved problem in robotics, but transitional maneuvers and agile negotiation of geometrically complex, unstable, fragile terrain characteristic of desert substrates pose a daunting next challenge for legged locomotion, requiring new approaches to turning, gait control, and perception.