In a new study delivered to the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), scientists Devin Carroll and Mark Yim from the University of Pennsylvania s GRASP Lab have put forth a proposal to send robots partially made of frozen H2O to icy exoplanets, where they can make use of local resources to self-fix in the event of a breakdown.
Credit: The GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania
Their intriguing paper examines various methods of manufacturing robotic structural components from ice by employing additive and subtractive manufacturing processes, with the endgame of developing a proof-of-concept for robots that can display “self-reconfiguration, self-replication, and self-repair.”