Swarms in Space Missions - Autonomous and Autonomic Systems - page 202

SARA : The Saturn Autonomous Ring Array would use 1,000 pico-class space-
craft, organized as ten subswarms, each with specialized instruments to
perform in situ exploration of Saturn's rings, so as to understand their
make up and how they were formed. The concept mission would require
self-configuring structures for nuclear propulsion and control. Additionally,
autonomous operation would be necessary for both maneuvering around
Saturn's rings and collision avoidance between spacecraft.
ANTS : Application Lunar Base Activities would exploit new NASA-
developed technologies in the field of miniaturized robotics, which would
form the basis of remote landers to be launched to the moon from re-
mote sites and would exploit innovative techniques (described below in
Sect. 10.2.1 ) to allow rovers to move in an amoeboid-like fashion over the
moon's uneven terrain.

The following sections describe the SMART and PAM mission concepts.
The description of SMART covers similar technologies that would also be
needed for the Lander Amorphous Rover Antenna (LARA) (and other) con-
cept missions. Since SARA and PAM have many attributes in common (as
regards to autonomous operation), we will concentrate on a description of
PAM in the following.

10.2.1 SMART

The ANTS SMART architectures were initiated to develop new kinds of struc-
tures capable of:

• Goal-oriented robotic motion

• Changing form to optimize function (morphological capabilities)

•

Adapting to new environmental demands (learning and adaptation
capabilities)

• Repairing-protecting itself (autonomic capabilities)

The basic unit of the structures is a tetrahedron (Fig. 10.1 ) consisting of
four addressable nodes interconnected with six struts that can be reversibly
deployed or stowed. More complex structures are formed from interconnect-
ing these reconfigurable tetrahedra, making structures that are scalable and
leading to massively parallel systems. These highly-integrated, 3D meshes of
actuators/nodes and structural elements hold the promise of providing a new
approach to robust and effective robotic motion. The current working hy-
pothesis is that the full functionality of such a complex system requires fully
autonomous intelligent operations at each node.
The tetrahedron (tet) “walks” by extending certain struts, changing its
center of mass, and “falling” in the desired direction. As the tetrahedral struc-
ture “grows” by interfacing more and more tets, the falling motion evolves to
a smoother walking capability, i.e., the smoother walking-climbing-avoiding