No single robot can do all the tasks, but having many different robots on a lunar mission would be very inefficient. WORMS setups offer an alternative in the form of components that can be combined and matched to create the robot you want.
WORMS, an acronym for “Walking Oligomeric Robotic Mobility System,” was developed by a team of MIT engineers led by PhD candidate and graduate instructor George Lordos. He suggested the word “oligomer”, which is Greek for “some parts”.
The system was first conceived last year in response to NASA’s Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge. The challenge asked college students to develop a robotic system capable of navigating extreme extraterrestrial terrain without wheels.
In a nutshell, WORMS consist of a worm-like articulated leg, various types of “shoes” that attach to the bottom of the leg, and various pallets that act as a chassis for the robot. Quickly and easily snap all of these bits together in the combination you need using a twist-and-lock spring-loaded coupler known as a Universal Interface Block (UCI).
To demonstrate this technology, the team created a spider-inspired lunar mapping robot called WORMS-1. Its rough diamond-shaped pallet is outfitted with his six legs, all of which share her one power source. It also has a vertically protruding module in the middle with her LiDAR sensor on top. The robot was unveiled by engineers at the IEEE Aerospace Conference in Montana last week.
“You can imagine a hut on the moon with a shelf of earthworms,” Rhodes said. “The astronauts can enter the hut, pick the worms they need and the right shoes, torso, sensors and tools, assemble everything, take it apart and build something new. The design is flexible, sustainable and It is cost effective.”
You can see WORMS-1 in action in the video below.
MIT WORMS Development Video October 2022
Source: MIT
