Introduction

Inspire by the timeless story Hansel and Gretel, the University of Arizona researchers have created a new technology that leverages the breadcrumbs technique trick to lead robots across strange terrains, such as caverns on Mars.

In a statement, Wolfgang Fink, creator and head of the Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Center at Caltech and Arizona, stated, "If you recall the novel, you know how Hansel and Gretel laid breadcrumbs to ensure they'd find their way back.

The "breadcrumbs" in our example are tiny sensors that ride along on the rovers and are released when they go through a cave or other underground environment.

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Mother Rover

The exploration system included a large ground-based rover that would transport several smaller rovers to the beginning of a network of caverns. This rover is referred to as the "mother" rover. The smaller autonomous rovers arrived at the entrance and left to explore various paths inside the system, leaving the mother rover to stay put at the entrance.

• Even when radio signals cannot penetrate a rock, the rovers may still utilise this technique to explore and study the cave system.

• In order to map the cave system, the small rovers would periodically transmit and receive radio signals to and from the "mother" rover positioned near the entrance.

• Radio waves must be transported from one breadcrumb to the next since they cannot pass through solid rock. When the signal weakens, the rover will scatter a new breadcrumb in an effort to locate the other rovers.

• This kind of mapping may be useful for various types of terrain, such as disaster zones, dangerous conditions, or other planetary surfaces.

In addition to any data gathered by their onboard cameras and LiDAR sensors, the mini rovers would transmit information about their location in relation to the mother rover. When all the information was obtained, the mother rover could combine and analyse it to produce an extensive computer map of the cave system.

Tiny, disposable rovers

Each of the little rovers would continue travelling ahead until it ran out of breadcrumbs, ran out of power or ran into terrain impediments, at which point it would be rendered useless.

• The researchers' method might be used to examine possible astronaut homes by assessing if caves and tunnels could be converted into habitations.

• After creating functional rovers fitted with communication equipment, the researchers are now focusing on creating a method for spreading the breadcrumbs.

Advances in Space Research publicised the team's results.

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