SuperBall bot tensegrity planetary lander, NASA’s Intelligent Systems Division, NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program

[Airicist]

Contributors:

BEST Lab (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?12704)

Dynamic Tensegrity Robotics Lab (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?12721)

Super Ball Bot - Structures for Planetary Landing and Exploration (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/cct/technology/stp/earlystage/niac_superbot_prt.htm)

nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac (http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac) - NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program

"Super Ball Bot - Structures for Planetary Landing and Exploration (http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2012_phase_I_fellows_agogino.html)"

Adrian Agogino (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?12706)
NASA ARC

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/GCDKnYxG4yE

SuperBall Tensegrity Robot Mission Concept

Published on Oct 8, 2013


This video shows an overview of the different stages of the SuperBall tensegrity robot planetary exploration mission concept. In it you will see simulations of how the robot can be packed into an efficient configuration for launch, and then deployed before landing on another planet. At the moment of landing, the natural compliance of the tensegrity robot absorbs impact forces, much like an air-bag, and then it is able to control its tensile network to generate a rolling locomotion which can easily handle obstacles and complex terrains.

All the simulations of landing and rolling around different terrains were created in the physics based NASA Tensegrity Robotics Toolkit (NTRT) simulator -- which will be released as an open source package in 2014. This simulator has allowed us to research control approaches prior to building our hardware prototypes.

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/9mGWuFxmGFU

ICRA 2015 SUPERball Tensegrity Robot

Published on Nov 3, 2014


Video Submission for the paper "System Design and Locomotion of SUPERball, an Autonomous Tensegrity Robot" submitted to the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2015).

Authors: Andrew P. Sabelhaus, Jonathan Bruce, Ken Caluwaerts, Pavlo Manovi, Roya Fallah Firoozi, Sarah Dobi, Alice M. Agogino (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?12703), Vytas SunSpiral (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?12702).

In this video you see our newest prototype tensegrity robot, SUPERBall, and some of its modular design details. Also shown is how the overall structural stiffness can be changed by actuating one cable and how it is able to roll over.

See more at: http://www.magicalrobot.org

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/Hqn4AEfn_qg

Super Ball Bot Drop and Roll

Published on Nov 18, 2015


This video is a demonstration of the first SUPERball prototype showing initial examples of impact robustness (driving off a loading dock) and locomotion. This prototype was developed specifically to address foundational engineering concepts related to locomotion of tensegrity robots, such as sensor and actuator design, controllability, and system performance analysis. While this prototype was not explicitly designed to withstand the high speed landing scenerios envisioned for the full system, we see that it can easily survive falls of a meter, which would seriously damage most traditional robots. A future prototype will integrate lessons learned from this iteration, and will incorporate a number of design features to enable high-speed landing scenerios.

Read more:
"Super Ball Bot - Structures for Planetary Landing and Exploration (http://www.nasa.gov/spacetech/niac/2013phaseII_sunspiral.html)"

September 4, 2013

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/EeLXhwNRrLQ

SUPERball Bot prototype using a locomotion algorithm

Published on Sep 21, 2016

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/1wce-mB69mE

Human Exploration Telerobotics 2 (HET2) SUPERball Bot Task NIAC Mission concept

Published on Sep 21, 2016

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/hkzeE6BVNIk

Design of SUPERball v2, a Compliant Tensegrity Robot

Uploaded on Oct 5, 2018


"Design of SUPERball v2, a Compliant Tensegrity Robot for Absorbing Large Impacts" by Massimo Vespignani, Jeffrey M. Friesen, Vytas SunSpiral, and Jonathan Bruce from NASA Ames Research Center and UC San Diego Coordinated Robotics Lab, USA. Presented at IROS 2018 in Spain.