Tech Briefs Magazine - August 2023 - 45

SPINOFF
Tensegrity Robots to the Rescue
Robots designed for space when fitted with the right sensors can help first responders
determine their approach to a disaster scene.
D
r. Alice Agogino was researching spherical,
skeletal robots that might one day
be dropped onto Mars or the Moon to
collect information and conduct science
experiments, when she realized that her
NASA-funded technology could have terrestrial
benefits as well.
Reading a report on the dangers and
high death toll of disaster response, Agogino
recognized that her robots, fitted with
the right sensors, could gather data at the
scenes of fires, crashes, explosions, and
other disasters to help first responders assess
situational dangers like toxic gas leaks
and plan their approach.
" We thought, wow, if we can do this on
the Moon, we should be able to do it on
planet Earth and save some lives, " said
Agogino, Director of the Berkeley Emergent
Space Tensegrities Lab at the University
of California at Berkeley.
She went on to cofound Berkeley, California-based
Squishy Robotics Inc. The
company makes impact-resistant, customizable
robots for public safety, military, and
industrial uses.
Agogino's robots look like ball-shaped
skeletons made of rods and elastic cables.
She describes the structure as " a tension
network " - if one of these robots is
dropped, the impact is distributed across
the whole network, dissipating the force,
according to the principle of tensegrity.
The term tensegrity - short for tensile
(or tensional) integrity - was coined in
the 1960s by architect R. Buckminster Fuller,
who popularized
geodesic
domes,
which are also tensegrity structures.
For NASA, the ability of tensegrity robots
to withstand the impact of a long drop is
especially interesting, as is the ability of
these structures to collapse into a small
package during travel.
The agency awarded Agogino and her
UC Berkeley lab Early Stage Innovations
(ESI) funding in 2014 to research tensegrity
robot mobility using gas thrusters.
The $500,000, multi-year, proof-of-concept
ESI grants aim to accelerate the development
of innovative space technologies
Tech Briefs, August 2023
Spinoff is NASA's annual publication featuring
successfully commercialized NASA technology. This
commercialization has contributed to the development
of products and services in the fields of health and
medicine, consumer goods, transportation, public safety,
computer technology, and environmental resources.
Weighing less than three pounds, the stationary
robot can be integrated with most commercial
drones. (Image: Squishy Robotics Inc.)
that have significant potential. The funding
is offered through the Space Technology
Research Grants program, which supports
academic researchers working on
space-related science and technology.
Agogino and her team were designing
space exploration probes that could
drop from a planetary orbit or a larger
spacecraft, survive the drop carrying delicate
sensors, and then roll and jump
over rough terrain to perform missions
and scientific monitoring on the Moon
and on other planets.
" Think about the Mars Curiosity and
Perseverance rovers, " said Terry Fong,
Chief Roboticist in NASA's Intelligent Robotics
Group at Ames Research Center in
Silicon Valley, CA.
Fong, who was the NASA-side technical
representative for Agogino's grant, explained
that the Mars rovers had to be gently
lowered to the planet's surface with the
elaborate Sky Crane system, which was
heavy and complicated and used only for
the final part of landing on Mars.
" With tensegrity robots, the robot itself is
the landing device, " Fong said. " It could
survive a fall from very high up and then
keep going. "
The tensegrity devices can be folded flat
for travel, in fact, that's how Agogino ships
the ones Squishy Robotics sends to customers.
Once the robot unfurls, its instruments
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Tensegrity robots can be " squished " down,
for easy packing and shipping - a feature
that's especially interesting to NASA because
there's not much extra room on spacecraft.
(Image: Squishy Robotics Inc.)
and sensors are suspended in the center,
protected from the impact of a fall or crash.
" So, you save on throwaway mass, " Fong
said. " It's expensive and difficult to launch
mass into space, so you want more of it to
be used beyond landing, to be used on the
surface with scientific instrumentation and
other payloads. "
NASA also researched Earth science
applications for tensegrity robots, which
might be used to monitor, for instance,
45
A drone transports one of Squishy Robotics'
tensegrity robots as part of an exercise with
Southern Manatee Fire and Rescue in Florida.
(Image: Southern Manatee Fire and Rescue)
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Tech Briefs Magazine - August 2023

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