Design, Fabrication, and Testing of Dandelion-Inspired Flying Sensors for Mars Exploration

Abstract

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-0962.vid This paper aims to design and prototype a swarm of dandelion-inspired micro-robots for Martian exploration. Rough terrain, obstacles, dust storms, and environmental conditions make it challenging for land rovers or drones to explore the surface and cover large amounts of terrain. In this research, a new concept of robot design is proposed for a wind-driven aerial flight based on the physical structure of the Dandelion flower. A spherical robot is designed to house 1000 dandelion-seed shaped micro robots to be driven by the common Martian winds, equipped with various sensors needed for climate monitoring, exploration, analysis, scientific experimentation, and localization on Mars. This technology harnesses a hybrid power system using local Martian winds for long-range and long-duration missions, expanding the region covered by land rovers. The dandelion micro-robot concept will incorporate RF and/or optical technologies, machine learning, and artificial intelligence-based algorithms. The combination of these methods will allow the robots to have a pre-defined objective path based on the most recently measured wind patterns and their current understanding of the surrounding environment.