NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION CONTRACT NO. NAS 7-918

TECHNICAL SUPPORT PACKAGE

On

BIO-INSPIRED ENGINEERING OF EXPLORATION SYSTEMS

for 05/01/2003

NASA TECH BRIEF Vol. 27, No. 5

From

JPL NEW TECHNOLOGY REPORT NPO- 21142

Inventor(s): SARITA THAKOOR TSP assembled by: JPL Intellectual Assets office pp. i-ii, 1-29

JET PROPULSION LABORACALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TEC

PASADENA, CALIFORN

NOTICE This document was prepared under the sponsorship of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Neither the United States Government nor any person acting on behalf of the United States Government assumes any liability resulting from the use of the information contained in this document or warrants that such use will be free from privately owned rights. If trade names or manufacturers' names are used in this report, it is for identification only. This usage does not constitute an official endorsement, either expressed or implithe National Aeronautics and Space

ed, by

Administration.

TORY HNOLOGY

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Bio-Inspired Engineering of Exploration SystemsExploration systems with capabilities imbibed from nature enable new operationsthat were otherwise very difficult or impossible to accomplish.NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

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The multidisciplinary concept of“bioinspired engineering of explo-ration systems” (BEES) is described,which is a guiding principle of the con-tinuing effort to develop biomorphicexplorers as reported in a number ofarticles in the past issues of NASA TechBriefs. The intent of BEES is to distillfrom the principles found in successfulnature-tested mechanisms of specific“crucial functions” that are hard to ac-complish by conventional methods butthat are accomplished rather deftly innature by biological organisms. The in-tent is not just to mimic operationalmechanisms found in a specific biolog-ical organism but to imbibe the salientprinciples from a variety of diverse bio-organisms for the desired “crucialfunction.” Thereby, we can build ex-plorer systems that have specific capa-bilities endowed beyond nature, asthey will possess a combination of thebest nature-tested mechanisms for thatparticular function. The approach con-sists of selecting a crucial function, forexample, flight or some selected as-pects of flight, and develop an ex-

plorer that combines the principles ofthose specific attributes as seen in di-verse flying species into one artificialentity. This will allow going beyond bi-ology and achieving unprecedented ca-pability and adaptability needed in en-countering and exploring what is as yetunknown. A classification of biomor-phic flyers into two main classes of sur-face and aerial explorers is illustratedin the figure, with examples of a varietyof biological organisms that providethe inspiration in each respective sub-class.

Such biomorphic explorers may pos-sess varied mobility modes: surface-rov-ing, burrowing, hopping, hovering, orflying, to accomplish surface, subsur-face, and aerial exploration. Prepro-grammed for a specific function, theycould serve as one-way communicatingbeacons, spread over the explorationsite, autonomously looking for/at thetargets of interest. In a hierarchical or-ganization, these biomorphic explorerswould report to the next level of explo-ration mode (say, a large conventionallander/rover) in the vicinity. A wide-

spread and affordable exploration ofnew/hazardous sites at lower cost andrisk would thus become possible by uti-lizing a faster aerial flyer to cover longranges and deploying a variety of func-tion-specific, smaller biomorphic ex-plorers for distributed sensing and localsample acquisition. Several conceptualbiomorphic missions for planetary andterrestrial exploration applicationshave been illustrated in “Surface-Launched Explorers for Reconnais-sance/Scouting” (NPO-20871), NASATech Briefs, Vol. 26, No. 4 (April, 2002),page 69 and “Bio-Inspired Engineeringof Exploration Systems,” Journal of SpaceMission Architecture, Issue 2, Fall 2000,pages 49-79.

Insects (for example, honey bees anddragonflies) cope remarkably well withtheir world, despite possessing a brainthat carries less than 0.01 percent asmany neurons as that of the human. Al-though most insects have immobileeyes, fixed-focus optics, and lack stereovision, they use a number of ingeniousstrategies for perceiving their world inthree dimensions and navigating suc-

These Examples of Biological Inspirations show different mobility categories.

BiomorphicSubsurface Systems

BiomorphicSurface Systems

BiomorphicFlight Systems

Surface/SubsurfaceAerial

Biomorphic Explorers: Classification(Based on Mobility and Ambient Environment)

Biomorphic Explorers

Honeybee

Dragonfly Humming Bird

Monarch Butterfly

Inchworm

Ant

Centipede

Earthworm

GerminatingSeed

Seed Wing

Soaring Bird

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cessfully in it. We are distilling some ofthese insect-inspired strategies to obtainunique solutions to navigation, hazardavoidance, terrain following, andsmooth deployment of payload. Suchfunctionality can enable one to reachpreviously unreachable explorationsites.

In-situ, autonomous exploration andscience return from planetary surfacesand subsurfaces would be substantiallyenhanced if a large number of small,inexpensive, and therefore dispens-able, biomorphic explorers equippedwith dedicated microsensors could bespread over the surface. Their low-costand small size would make them idealfor hazardous or difficult site explo-ration, inspection, and testing. Their

dedicated sensing functions and au-tonomous maneuverability would bevaluable in scouting missions and sam-ple acquisition from hard-to-reachplaces. As was mentioned earlier, whenpreprogrammed for a specific func-tion and spread over the explorationsite, these explorers could serve as in-telligent, downlink-only beacons thatautonomously look for objects of in-terest. Alternatively, these biomorphicexplorers can operate in a hierarchicalorganization and report their findingsto the next higher level of exploration(say, a large conventional lander/rover) in the vicinity. Specifically, ourrecent results demonstrate the noveltyof our approach in adapting principlesproven successful in nature to achieve

stable flight control, navigation, andvisual search/recognition. This ap-proach has enabled overall a robust ar-chitecture for reliable image data re-turn in application scenarios both forterrestrial and planetary needs whereonly a limited telecommunications ornavigational infrastructure is availableand is therefore otherwise by tradi-tional methods hard or impossible toexplore.

This work was done by Sarita Thakoor ofCaltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labo-ratory. For further information, access theTechnical Support Package (TSP) free on-lineat www.nasatech.com/tsp under the Ma-chinery/Automation category.NPO-21142

“Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process or service by tradename, trademark manufacturer or otherwise, does not constitute or imply itsendorsement by the United States Government or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,California Institute of Technology.”

“The work described here was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,California Institute of Technology under contract with the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration.”