NASA Grants Funding to Explore If Tiny Robots May Explore Oceans in Other Worlds
the solar system has received an additional $600,000 from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
A mission launched to investigate oceans beneath the frozen surfaces of some of our solar system's moons
such as Saturn's Enceladus or Jupiter's Europa, might extend its range with the help of a system similar to that of dispersed microscopic robots
Ethan Schaler, a robotics mechanical engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, came up with the idea for "Sensing With Independent Micro-Swimmers," or SWIM.
Where, in your opinion, can we use miniature robotics in novel and intriguing ways to explore our solar system?
In the statement, Schaler said. "By having many robots gathering data in the same region"
"we are able to investigate a considerably wider volume of ocean water using a swarm of small swimming robots and improve our observations."
Robots equipped with sensors would be able to overlap their measurements
lowering the possibility of errors. More data points suggest a great capacity to analyse gradients or variations in the environment of the swimmers.
The concept of micro-swimmers is still purely theoretical and has not been incorporated into any particular NASA mission. In contrast
NASA is currently preparing for the launch of its Europa Clipper mission in 2024, which will orbit Europa numerous times to study the moon
Europa Clipper's findings may eventually be used to guide a mission using tiny SWIM robots to eventually dive into the waters beneath the frozen surface of the moon.
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