How Strong a Kick Should be to Topple Northeastern's Tumbling Robot?

TL;DR

This paper discusses the design and principles behind COBRA, a bio-inspired tumbling robot developed by Northeastern University, which successfully competed in NASA's challenge for rough terrain lunar exploration.

Contribution

It introduces COBRA, a novel articulated tumbling robot, and explains the principles that contributed to its success in NASA's competition.

Findings

COBRA won NASA's Artemis Award in 2022.

The robot is designed for extremely rough lunar terrain.

The paper compares COBRA to other mobility concepts.

Abstract

Rough terrain locomotion has remained one of the most challenging mobility questions. In 2022, NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program invited US academic institutions to participate NASA's Breakthrough, Innovative \& Game-changing (BIG) Idea competition by proposing novel mobility systems that can negotiate extremely rough terrain, lunar bumpy craters. In this competition, Northeastern University won NASA's top Artemis Award award by proposing an articulated robot tumbler called COBRA (Crater Observing Bio-inspired Rolling Articulator). This report briefly explains the underlying principles that made COBRA successful in competing with other concepts ranging from cable-driven to multi-legged designs from six other participating US institutions.