SpaceHopper: A Small-Scale Legged Robot for Exploring Low-Gravity Celestial Bodies
OPEN ACCESS
Loading...
Author / Producer
Date
2024
Publication Type
Conference Paper
ETH Bibliography
yes
Citations
Altmetric
OPEN ACCESS
Data
Rights / License
Abstract
We present SpaceHopper, a three-legged, smallscale robot designed for future mobile exploration of asteroids and moons. The robot weighs 5.2 kg and has a body size of 245 mm while using space-qualifiable components. Furthermore, SpaceHopper’s design and controls make it well-adapted for
investigating dynamic locomotion modes with extended flightphases. Instead of gyroscopes or fly-wheels, the system uses its three legs to reorient the body during flight in preparation for landing. We control the leg motion for reorientation using Deep Reinforcement Learning policies. In a simulation of Ceres’ gravity (0.029 g), the robot can reliably jump to commanded positions up to 6 m away. Our real-world experiments show that SpaceHopper can successfully reorient to a safe landing orientation within 9.7 deg inside a rotational gimbal and jump in a counterweight setup in Earth’s gravity. Overall, we consider SpaceHopper an important step towards controlled jumping locomotion in low-gravity environments
Permanent link
Publication status
published
Editor
Book title
2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Journal / series
Volume
Pages / Article No.
3464 - 3470
Publisher
IEEE
Event
41st IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2024)
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
Space Robotics; Legged Robotics; Planetary Exploration; Microgravity
Organisational unit
09570 - Hutter, Marco / Hutter, Marco
02284 - NFS Digitale Fabrikation / NCCR Digital Fabrication
Notes
Funding
-- - NCCR Digital Fabrication (SNF)