WEBVTT - Rovers Get Around 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.880 Forward Thinking. They've even welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.560 that looks at the future and says moving right along. 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:22.600 I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Obama, and Joe McCormick. You guys, 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:26.360 I have like a super awesome, cool description of a 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:29.600 DARPA challenge. I want to tell you a DARPA challenge. Yeah, 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:32.800 so you know DARPA. That's that that that big old 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.479 facility or agency I should say, in the United States 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:39.080 that ends up funding lots of stuff for essentially the 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:43.080 Department of Defense. Without DARPA, we wouldn't necessarily have things 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:46.040 like autonomous cars that are coming out. Google's autonomous car 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:47.720 wouldn't be a thing because a lot of people who 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.839 worked on that originally developed autonomous cars as part of 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:56.240 a DARPA challenge. So DARPA issues these challenges out to 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:00.480 pretty much any entity that can compete in them and says, 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.960 if you're able to do you know, this particular task 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:07.360 in this particular way with something, then when you will 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.559 be awarded a certain kind of prize. So in this case, 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:12.640 the Darker challenge, I wanted to talk about has to 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.800 do with the robotics. They don't all necessarily deal with robotics, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:18.679 but this one specifically does. So here's the challenge. You 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.200 first have to build a robot that is capable of 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:25.160 moving around and sensing an environment, be able to leave 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.800 a building, climbed down a set of stairs, go to 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.160 a golf cart, get in the golf cart, and drive 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.280 the golf cart to a different location in dynamic situation. 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:38.760 So there could be traffic, there could be pedestrians, and 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.240 the robot has to be able to navigate around these 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.040 things without causing harm to itself or others, you know, 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.080 three laws. And then it gets to a new location, 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.360 gets out of the golf cart, goes into another building, 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.760 climbs a different set of stairs, then has to break 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.120 through a wall, and then find a fire hose, pick 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.560 it up and point it at a target. Now, does 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.480 it have to turn the fire hose on? Not necessarily, 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:06.720 at least that's not how it was described to me. 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:10.520 So the whole point of the exercise is to really 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:13.480 push the limits of what we can do in robotics. 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:15.320 I mean, that's the case with all the DARPA challenges. 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.320 It's it's meant to be something that really makes engineers 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.360 and scientists work extra hard in order to achieve it, 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:26.760 because these are extraordinarily difficult things to ask of anyone, 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.760 but also very useful and and extraordinarily difficult. Absolutely, like 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.239 I couldn't do that, Like, I mean, the kool aid 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:34.919 man would be able to break through the wall apart, 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.400 but not I think that the rest could be a challenge. 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.720 This is exactly yeah. Yeah, I did not say that 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.399 the robot had to yell out oh yeah after coming 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:44.280 through the wall. So I think I think it's the 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:46.400 only obvious. I think you kind of have to have 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.640 it do that. But so anyway, the winning group I 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.399 think gets like two million dollars if they win this, uh, which, 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:55.080 in the grand scheme of things, when you think about 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.840 how much work goes into making something like this happen, 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:02.000 is probably getting pay it about about the you know, 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.040 it's probably maybe even taking a loss, who knows. But 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:06.919 the idea is that you'd have to have a robot 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:08.640 that's strong enough to break through a wall. It would 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:10.519 have to be able to maintain its balance by going 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:12.840 up and downstairs. It would have to be able to 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.839 be environmentally aware, so it had to be able to 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:19.680 to uh navigate around obstacles, have to be able to 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.359 actually navigate period, and have to have some form of 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:24.840 of maps inside of it, our GPS that could know 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.440 how to get from location A to location b. Um. 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:30.760 There are a lot of different elements to this challenge, 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:32.840 and none of them are easy. I have a question, 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.520 does it have to be a two legged robot? Or 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:38.200 can it be a six legged robot that goes downstairs 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.000 and drives a golf cart? It does not have to 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:41.920 be a two legged robot. A lot of the teams 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.720 are focusing on making a human like robot because a 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:47.600 lot of the stuff we happen to operate, say like 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.200 golf carts, happens to be made for human shaped things 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.000 and not six legged uh insect bots. But there's nothing 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.200 specific from what I understand because I actually asked that 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.840 same question. I said, I said, is it does it 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.880 have to be like a bipedal robot? And I was 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.000 told no, it doesn't have to be. In fact, if 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.280 you can figure out a way of engineering around that, 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.680 then you could do that. And in fact, that's kind 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:11.960 of what leads me up to this topic I wanted 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.280 to talk about. Is just the idea of how robots 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:18.799 get around places. I mean, that's that's just one aspect 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.360 of all the difficult things we we just mentioned, but 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:24.279 it's still all in its own, hugely challenging. Yeah, the 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:28.480 idea is robot locomotion. Locomotion is different from just motion. 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.240 So robot motion is something we've been working on for 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.360 a long time, making an arm that welds a car 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:39.080 door or you know, or a cartesian robot that moves 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.000 over something moving along under it on a conveyor belt 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.320 and it can punch holes in it or something like that. 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.440 But locomotion is talking about getting from one place to another, 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.600 which is not necessarily as easy as it sounds, right, 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:54.040 And in fact, if you look at a lot of 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:57.080 the early robots used in manufacturing, those robots that were 0:04:57.120 --> 0:04:59.920 not meant to move, they weighed tons and tons and 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.000 that you set them down. In fact, only were they 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.159 not meant to move, they were not meant to be 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.640 near people, like human interaction was not a thing because 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:11.960 these were giant, powerful machines that could do serious injury 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:13.920 to someone if they got in the way. But now 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.840 we're talking about a world where our robots are coming 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.640 into closer contact with us, and also that we want 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:21.760 to send off to other places, how do we make 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.960 sure they can get around? Right? And so robot locomotion 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:26.680 is a big topic, and I think we could do 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:30.200 a bunch of episodes about locomotion generally, I think today 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.200 it would be cool to focus on one really specific 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:37.040 challenge and maybe one of the hardest jobs in robot locomotion, 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:41.080 which is getting around on other planets. Right, So we're 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.800 talking about rovers here, the idea of some sort of 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.880 robotic entity that can move around on the surface of 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:52.760 a planet and it's receiving commands all the way back 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.520 here from Earth. In some cases, I mean we'll actually 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:57.440 really in pretty much all cases, you have to have 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.560 a lot of autonomy built into the robot because from 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.080 the time it comes into contact with something to the 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.560 time when someone can react to it and send a 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:08.800 message back to the time when it can then react 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.240 to the message can be half an hour. Like within 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:14.919 the case of of Mars, I think it's something like 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:19.040 fourteen minutes each way. Well that that is one potential 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.960 time because earthen mars are never Earthen mars are not 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.719 always at the exact same distance from each other. Fourteen minutes. 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:30.120 That's either the maximum or the minimum or the average. 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.040 That number occurred for a reason, covering all the basis, 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.240 you know, that was those specifically when the Curious Curiosity 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.039 rover was landing on Mars. At that point, Earthen Mars 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.800 were no longer at their closest points. Um they you know, 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.080 it's it's one of those things because the planets are 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.680 always in motion, you have to you have to plan 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.279 out these launches very specifically in order to conserve as 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:53.760 much fuel as possible because as we know, fuel adds weight. 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.200 But all of that aside, you know, even getting all 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.480 of those challenges, which we could do a full episode 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.239 just on the of getting the Curiosity or over to Mars, 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.120 there's still the challenges of how does the rover move 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.120 around once it lands on the planet. Right, So I 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:10.920 think today we should just talk about a few different 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:15.240 potential designs for how rovers get around, and before that, 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:19.240 maybe we should talk about some general concerns. Um by 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.160 no means is this list exhaustive, because there are tons 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:27.280 of concerns that go into designing a robot. But think 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.920 there are some good basic groups. Yeah, yeah, right, So 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.000 number one I think is something that you might not 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.000 think is important when it comes to somebody like NASA 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.240 that has a government funding. Um. But actually it's very 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.480 important even to space exploration, which is just cost and 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.080 ease of design, specifically to space exploration, which we've seen 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:51.120 received budget cuts several times of the last few d decades. Really, right, 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.120 so pretty much all engineers have to consider this. You know, 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.960 what are the cost of the things you're using, the 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.440 cost of testing them, the cost of designing them, and 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.240 how feasible is it to make this thing work in 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:06.440 time for launch. Uh. There's also issues of mobility like 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.760 how fast can it go, how definitely can it move 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:15.880 around like it's turning radius and things like that. There's stability, um, 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.040 which you could address two ways. One you could make 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:22.360 a robot that is very resilient to falling over or 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:25.880 resilient hasn't it doesn't fall over, Or you can make 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.520 one that doesn't mind falling over. Yeah. This makes me 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.000 think of those remote controlled cars that they that came 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.160 out when I was a kid. The these these were 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:36.719 designed in such a way that the car flipped over, 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.160 you could continue controlling it. Uh, it would just mean 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.240 that some of your controls would be reversed because the 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.000 car itself was designed so the wheels were a greater 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:49.320 diameter than the right And I've and I've seen some 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.240 like military industrial robots that operated on a very on 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:57.120 a similarly small scale, um in a similar way. And 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.480 note here that that making instrumentation attached to your robot 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.400 that doesn't mind getting tumbled all around might be one 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:08.520 of the trickier parts of this particular Uh yeah, sure 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:10.040 you might be able to get a robot to land 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:11.800 on the planet and roll around a lot, but if 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:13.920 you are designing a robot that can do that on 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.439 its back, it probably doesn't have a lot of delicate 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:19.400 equipment on it. Yeah. Uh yeah, So there's there's that. 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.080 There's also the integrity of the robot as a as 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.960 a structural unit. You don't want it to get stuck 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:29.280 or to get broken easily. Uh. There's energy efficiency, which 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.800 is a big deal. When you're shooting something far away 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:34.480 from the Earth, you can't plug it in to recharge it. Yeah. 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.600 We haven't got a Tesla supercharged station on the Martian 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:39.960 soil yet, and I don't think they have any plans 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:42.160 in the near future to address that. No, So you 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:46.040 either need like, really, come on, you're you're with SpaceX 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:50.040 for gonness sakes. You need like a protected mobile power 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.160 source that's gonna last a long time, like like curiosities, 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:57.000 uh little nuclear diddy um, or you need something like 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:01.559 solar panels to continuously absorb power from the sun. But 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:05.160 but even with something like solar panels on mars Um, 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.040 you've got some problems because solar panels number one or 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:10.360 not that efficient. You're not going to be generating a 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.800 whole lot of useful power. That's limited. Number two. They 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.400 can get stuck out of alignment with the Sun, or 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.760 they can become covered in dust. They're big and delicate 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.760 and clumsy. You could even have your robot in a 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.439 region of the planet where as it goes through its 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.559 orbit it is no longer, you know, getting that much 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:31.760 sunlight at all, which is what happened to a previous 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.960 Martian rover that that is sadly no longer with us. 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.480 Uh though Hey, a bonus of rover design is that 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:42.160 these things should ideally move pretty slow in general, like 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.439 like the Curiosity, for example, can go about four centimeters 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.520 per second that's like point one three ft per second 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:53.600 um and that low speed helps you um maximize the 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:58.320 engine's output for for strength. It's likely you can get 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.840 a lot more torque there than uh, and that's what 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.400 you're concerned with, because you may be climbing an incline 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:06.600 or going over a rock, and that's that's when you 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:08.880 need a lot of torque. But you don't necessarily need 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.079 to go fast. It's not like, as far as we know, 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.520 no Martians have been chasing any of these. It's not 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.960 like this rover needs to go point one four ft 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:23.080 per second or it'll explode. Right Well, I mean the 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:28.600 thing about is luckily not on Mars. Luckily that cuts 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:31.439 down on a lot of scientific problems. From what I understand, 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:34.360 I'm campaigning hard to get Kiano Reeves sent to Mars. 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.079 Oh I've actually started a Kickstarter Yeah yeah, I reached 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.560 funding soon. But then there's also just the concern of 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.640 how do you get the rover to its destination, which 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:48.240 is a much bigger problem than most people would probably realize. Like, 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:50.120 you can't just put in our c car in a 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.719 cannon and shoot it at Mars. You can, but it's 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.800 not gonna it's not gonna make it there. It has 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.600 to be something that you can put into a space 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.120 veha goal and something that you can deposit on the 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.520 foreign surface, whether it's you know, Mars or the Moon 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.640 or wherever you want to take it without damaging the 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.480 thing so that it can move around. This is not 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.040 easy at all. Again, the Curiosity Rover really proved that 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:16.720 it was. It was one of those plans. When I 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.320 first heard it, I thought, well, that's crazy. Yeah, it 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.320 had some crazy rocket parachute thing. Well, because the Martian 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:27.720 atmosphere is not is not uh viscous enough really to 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.080 have a parachute be very effective. I mean, it was 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.200 able to slow the descent a little bit, but not 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.400 like it would here on Earth, and it had to 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:38.520 have rockets retro rockets essentially to slow its descent or 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:40.480 else it never would have been able to make it 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.000 down onto the surface safely. But also I mean pretty 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:47.200 wicked shocks in order to to to let the wheels 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.440 support its weight from a from a even the gentle drop. 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:52.920 And so we're we're talking about like again, it was 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.280 one of those where this whole thing had to happen 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:59.840 autonomously because the rover was going to enter the atmosphere 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.080 land on the plant's surface in less time. Than it 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:05.760 would take for it to send a message back to Earth. 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.920 So we were when we were waiting to hear about 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.960 whether or not the Curiosity Rover had set down safely, 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.680 it had actually done that fourteen minutes previously. So we 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.640 found out and we all celebrated, but the actual event 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.720 had happened fourteen minutes earlier. It's pretty incredible stuff when 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:23.640 you think about it. And not only that, but you 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:27.120 really have to make sure that your design is compact 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.640 so it can fit within the confines of a spacecraft. 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:32.880 It's not like we have a a you know, the 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:36.080 ability to put any shape of spacecraft up in space. 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.319 It's all dependent upon the rockets that you use, so 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:41.959 you need to make sure that you're really conserving that space. 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:43.240 Just like you don't want to have a whole lot 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.400 of extra weight or and you don't want any extra 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.280 weight if you can avoid it. You don't want to 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:51.319 take up too much space either. Yeah, so I guess 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:55.000 we should start with something like the Curiosity Rover and 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.280 the other rovers that we've sent to Mars with the 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.080 obvious one wheels. I mean, this is the obvious way 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.440 to get a machine to move around, and there are 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.320 pretty good reasons that it's the go to system for 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.120 rover locomotion right now. Yeah, they're they're simple for one, 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.080 one of the simplest machines that's out there. In fact, 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.000 it's you know, you to look at the the inclined plane, 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.640 the the lever well, the wheel and axles right up there. Yeah, 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:25.960 so that's the simpler you get, the better. I mean, 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.400 that's one of the greatest strengths, right is because it's 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:32.800 such a simple design, there are fewer parts to break down, right, 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.160 So that's a big, big advantage. Yeah, it's just it's 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:40.240 less complicated robotically. I mean, when you think about something 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:44.120 like a robotic leg, think about all of the different 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:49.000 movements and software calculations that have to take place just 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:51.920 to move a leg from one place to another, let 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.120 alone taking into account all the different types of terrain. 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.280 Wheels work on a lot of different kinds pretty well. 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.080 Especially since we're talking up out rolling at a very 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.440 controlled rate. It's not like we're talking about trying to 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:08.040 you know, do uh wheelies across the surface of Mars 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:12.000 all that would be awesome. Um, it's so we're not 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.240 worried so much about speed. We're worried more about the efficiency. 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:18.320 We're worried about that power and for a lot of 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:22.560 them the terrain we're looking at, wheels work just fine. Yeah, 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:26.280 if you're just trying to drive across a pretty flat plane, 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.720 wheels are going to be great. Yeah, Curiosity actually has 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:33.520 some really cool wheels. Yes, it does rather. Yeah, it's 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:35.960 got some indentations in its wheels which allow it when 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:41.240 it when it rolls over uh, soil, the regular it 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:46.960 actually leaves behind little, um little patterns, and by maneuvering 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.800 the robot in very specific ways, engineers on Earth can 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.080 command the Curiosity Rover to roll around in such a 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.400 way that these little uh, these little markings, these little 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:00.920 raised portions from the indentations in the wheels end up 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.360 spelling out Morse code messages. And so they've sent messages. 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:06.760 You know, they've left messages for things like you know, 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:11.640 putting in the initials JPL, things like that. Um, so 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.200 it's cute stuff like that. Although they've also used it 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.880 in order for the Curiosity Rover to to leave a 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:22.080 mark behind that's just says this is your starting point. Okay, 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.480 so like navigational stuff. Yeah, it's not just for you know, 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:29.560 it's not just not just the equivalent of IBM manipulating 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:34.600 individual atoms to spell out it's it's its name. Yeah. Um. Also, 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:39.680 I think wheels are generally about as energy efficient as 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.120 you can get. Now, if you are an engineer or 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:45.280 robotics expert who would love to correct me on that, please, 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.760 I invite that. But it seems that a wheel is 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.760 is peak energy efficiency to me, it's pretty compact. Yeah, 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.160 A wheel turning is a much lower Uh. It's it's 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.760 much less energy to turn a wheel than say, manipulate 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:04.400 a robotic limb that might have multiple servos and joints 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.520 in it. Right. Well, I'm just thinking about like the 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:11.840 different mechanical energy required to, say, uh, ride a bike 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.640 across a flat plane a certain distance. You're getting into 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:21.000 some gyroscopic elements that don't apply when you're when you're 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.800 turning the wheel at a speed of point one three 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.200 ft per second. But I understand what you're saying, uh, 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.000 like if you you know, because uh, one of the 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:31.879 things about a bicycle is that when you're moving at 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:34.879 a certain speed, you have this gyroscopic effect that actually 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.840 keeps you upright and helps you maintain balance. And uh, 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.199 that would also quote unquote make things easier. So it's 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:46.399 a little different, but uh, in general, yes, I agree, Um, 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:49.400 there are some disadvantages. Oh yeah, Well, for one thing, 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:54.600 wheels can get stuck especially Yeah. So in the spring 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:58.000 of two thousand nine, the Spirit Rover, which by the way, 0:17:58.040 --> 0:17:59.959 I do not want to paint the Spirit Rover as 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.760 a failure. The Spirit Rover long outlived its planned mission 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.760 and it went all over the place. It It did 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.200 a great job and it inspired lots of people. I mean, 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.200 the NASA did a great job with getting the word 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.200 out to the public about the Spirit, about the Curiosity 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.720 as well, where it excited a lot of people about 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:21.880 the space program, which is one reason it was kind 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:23.879 of sad when, like I started to say, in the 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.640 spring of two thousand nine, the Spirit became stuck. It 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:30.560 was going across an an area called Troy on mars 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.320 Um and its wheels became stuck in loose soil. And 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.320 so for a long time after that, basically NASA was 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:40.840 just trying to figure out a way to plan and 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:44.359 escape action for the vehicle, but it never got out 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.560 of the loose soil. Should have launched an enormous wooden 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.680 horse to land right in front of it they could 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.960 climb into and that would have been fine. I read 0:18:54.040 --> 0:19:01.080 my history, your your history, the idea. Okay, so that's 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:03.560 not the only kind of surface that that wheels have 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:06.080 trouble sometimes with what else have we got right? You 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.560 could say, what if you needed to get over a 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:11.600 pile of loose rocks, Well, in that case, wheels could 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.119 have a lot of trouble. Yeah. Or if it's a 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.240 if it's really really rocky terrain, wheels may not be 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.600 able to uh may not be large enough to get 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.560 over them. There's also what if there's a crack in 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:25.960 the ground larger than the diameter of the wheel. I 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:28.359 mean that's then you just get stuck. Yeah, if the 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:30.280 wheel gets to the point where it's no longer making 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.320 contact with the ground, you could be really seriously stuck. 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.480 Or you're just talking about inclines. If the incline is 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:38.880 steep enough, the wheel may have to work harder than 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:43.399 the machine is capable of generating. I have to generate 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.720 more power than it's capable of doing, and then you 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.320 can't go any further. Or if you happen to be 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.680 descending an incline, you might end up losing control, right, 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.560 but despite these disadvantages, I don't want to give the 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:00.480 impression that I think wheels are a thing of the past. 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.359 I think wheels are awesome and it's amazing what you 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.439 can do with wheels and smart engineering, like the like 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:09.719 the rock or Bogeye system that they use for the 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:14.600 suspension of the drive on the Curiosity rover. Right, these 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.960 are the Curiosity. So it's got six wheels and each 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.800 can be independently controlled, and each receives torque directly from 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.560 the engine UM. The axles for each wheel are also 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.479 independent UM. Each is connected to this UM suspension device. 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.159 It's sort of like a leg like device. Yeah, so 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.000 you've got a lot of maneuverability there. You've got a 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.639 lot of ability to uh to to give yourself the 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:42.480 propulsion you need to get around or over obstacles. It's 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.959 pretty ingenious. Yeah. If they're actually videos online you can 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.040 go look up that are pretty cool. The jp L 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.679 researchers trying to design the system and they're testing it 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:53.959 in the lab, driving it over these little humps and 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:58.520 it's it's the most inspiring crawling over a hump you've 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:01.800 ever seen at the speed of a few centimeters per second. Yea, 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:07.680 so those are wheels. Let's talk about legs. Legs. How 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.000 come we don't have rovers with legs? Okay, So legs 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.840 are great. I love them, love me, love me. My 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:18.160 gams are great, fantastic. Well, they're really great for biological 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:21.959 organisms like us, absolutely. I mean they let us get around, uh, 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:26.920 let us get into trees and stuff out of trees. Both. Yea, 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:31.240 there's the less climb things like we can climb stairs, 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:33.800 we can get over rocks, we can do lots of 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.119 cool things that are really useful. We can jump, we 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:40.800