這個由冰組成的機(jī)器人被設(shè)計用來探索寒冷的行星

這個由冰組成的機(jī)器人被設(shè)計用來探索寒冷的行星

With a re-invigorated space race in the pursuit of a Mars landing – amongst many other upcoming exciting ventures – there have also been some pretty wacky but interesting ideas on how to expand space exploration recently. Last month, Japanese engineers suggested designs for a wooden satellite to combat space junk, and in 2021 could see a remote-controlled car race on the Moon, just because scientists can.

在追求火星登陸的太空競賽中——在許多即將到來的激動人心的冒險中——最近也有一些關(guān)于如何擴(kuò)大太空探索的相當(dāng)古怪但有趣的想法。上個月，日本工程師提出了一種木制衛(wèi)星的設(shè)計方案，以對抗太空垃圾。到2021年，我們可以在月球上看到遙控汽車比賽，因?yàn)榭茖W(xué)家可以做到。

Jack Dunhill

The latest fascinating innovation comes from people at the GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, who want to ditch clunky metal robots exploring other planets and replace them with ice. That’s right, they believe that using ice to build robots would allow for easy and cheap construction, and could even self-repair with the abundance of ice on some planetary bodies.

賓夕法尼亞大學(xué)GRASP實(shí)驗(yàn)室的研究人員提出了一項(xiàng)最新的創(chuàng)新，他們希望用冰取代笨重的金屬機(jī)器人來探索其他星球。沒錯，他們相信用冰來建造機(jī)器人將使建造變得簡單和廉價，甚至可以利用一些行星上豐富的冰進(jìn)行自我修復(fù)。

In their study, presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Devin Carroll and Mark Yim showed a proof-of-concept robot that can be driven around whilst being predominantly made of ice. The IceBot demonstrated that not only can an ice-based robot function, it can survive without melting at room temperature for a while – the authors state that the applications of the IceBot will be in environments cold enough that this wouldn’t pose a problem anyway.

德文·卡羅爾和馬克·尹在IEEE/RSJ智能機(jī)器人與系統(tǒng)國際會議(IROS)上發(fā)表了他們的研究成果，他們展示了一種概念驗(yàn)證型機(jī)器人，這種機(jī)器人可以在主要由冰構(gòu)成的情況下駕駛。“冰機(jī)器人”證明了一個以冰為基礎(chǔ)的機(jī)器人不僅可以工作，還可以在室溫下存活一段時間而不融化——作者指出，應(yīng)用冰機(jī)器人的環(huán)境將是足夠冷的，這不會造成任何問題。

“One of the challenges to making robots for this field is not only robots are expensive but the natural elements will break them given time,” Carroll said in an interview to IEEE Spectrum.

卡羅爾在接受IEEE Spectrum采訪時表示:“在這個領(lǐng)域制造機(jī)器人的挑戰(zhàn)之一不僅是機(jī)器人價格昂貴，而且隨著時間的推移，自然因素會破壞它們。”

“Mark and I started exploring the idea of building robots from found material as a way to add robustness to robotic systems operating in remote or hostile environments with a secondary goal of reducing the cost of the system.”

“馬克和我開始探索用現(xiàn)有材料建造機(jī)器人的想法，作為一種增加機(jī)器人系統(tǒng)在遠(yuǎn)程或惡劣環(huán)境中運(yùn)行的魯棒性的方法，附帶的目標(biāo)是降低系統(tǒng)的成本。”

The current problem with planetary rovers and robots is the intense reliability they require; should they have a malfunction or hit rough terrain and break a wheel, in most cases that’s game over for that robot. Sending an entire space mission to fix a solitary rover is not going to be viable any time soon and planets like Mars rarely stock spare wheels for a quick pit-stop.

行星探測車和機(jī)器人目前的問題是它們要求極高的可靠性;如果它們出現(xiàn)故障，或者撞到崎嶇的地形，弄壞輪子，在大多數(shù)情況下，機(jī)器人就玩完了。發(fā)射一項(xiàng)完整的太空任務(wù)來修理一個單獨(dú)的漫游者在短期內(nèi)是不可行的，像火星這樣的行星很少有備用的輪子來快速停車。

So instead, the researchers turned to one of the last materials anyone would expect robotics to be built out of – ice. Obviously, the circuitry can’t be made out of ice, but the chassis and wheels certainly could. If it were possible to create effective robots out of ice, said robot would have an abundance of spare parts literally across many planets’ floor. Even better, ice does not need glue or laser cutters to sculpt it into shapes and structures, so the robot could likely repair any breaks and even create its own parts in the future. In the meantime, crafting robots out of ice would be much cheaper than the composites used currently and could be used to create disposable bots.

因此，研究人員轉(zhuǎn)而求助于人們最不希望用的材料之一——冰。顯然，電路不能用冰做，但底盤和車輪當(dāng)然可以。如果有可能用冰來制造有效的機(jī)器人，那么機(jī)器人就會在很多行星的底部擁有大量的備件。更棒的是，冰不需要膠水或激光切割機(jī)來塑造形狀和結(jié)構(gòu)，所以機(jī)器人將來可能修復(fù)任何破損，甚至創(chuàng)造自己的部件。與此同時，用冰制造機(jī)器人要比目前使用的復(fù)合材料便宜得多，而且可以用來制造一次性機(jī)器人。

The IceBot is a very early iteration and exists purely as a proof-of-concept, so electronic ice overlords won’t be taking over just yet, but it is certainly an interesting concept. The researchers also state that whilst ice solves some problems, new problems arise, such as transportation of the robot would need to be cold enough to maintain its structure.

IceBot是一個非常早期的迭代，它純粹是作為一個概念驗(yàn)證而存在的，所以電子冰霸主目前還不會占據(jù)主導(dǎo)地位，但這肯定是一個有趣的概念。研究人員還指出，雖然冰解決了一些問題，但新的問題出現(xiàn)了，比如運(yùn)輸機(jī)器人需要足夠冷來維持其結(jié)構(gòu)。