NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed a robot called the Buoyant Rover for Under Ice Exploration (BRUIE), this rover would normally float and have wheels. Its wheels would roll along on the underside of ice, as if the ice were the ground. Operating underwater, the rover would take images and collect other data to help scientists understand the important interface between ice and water.
The body of the Buoyant Rover for Under Ice Exploration was tested at the bottom of 188,000-gallon aquatic tank in the California Science Center, Los Angeles, from June 22 to 24, 2015.
It is designed for ocean depths up to about 700 feet (200 meters). The central body contains computers, sensors and communication equipment. On either side of the central section is a “pod,” each with sensors, lights, a camera, batteries, instruments and two motors. The software for this rover is similar to what is being used for Mars Cube One, two communication-relay CubeSats that will launch with NASA’s InSight Mars lander in 2016. Researchers are currently working to increase the rover’s autonomy and capability working in hazard avoidance.
Andy Klesh, principal investigator for the rover at JPL explained that the Buoyant rover can be used to explore the Arctic and Antarctic. Researchers also visualize that a technology like this could one day explore icy bodies in the solar system.
“A lot of what we do in deep space is applicable to the ocean,” Klesh said. “This is an early prototype for vehicles that could one day go to Europa and other planetary bodies with a liquid ocean covered by ice. It’s ideal for traveling under the ice shelf of an icy world.”
“Our work aims to build a bridge between exploring extreme environments in our own ocean and the exploration of distant, potentially habitable oceans elsewhere in the solar system,” said Kevin Hand, co-investigator for the rover and planetary scientist at JPL. Dan Berisford, John Leichty and Josh Schoolcraft at JPL are also co-investigators on the project.
At the science center, the rover gathered data about its surroundings, including taking pictures of nearby fish and the people on the other side of the glass. The rover did not have its wheels, but the sections of its body rotated once every hour, giving visitors a show as it twisted around. The rover’s next destination will likely be near one of Earth’s frigid poles.
Image: NASA Source: NASA