Published on Nov. 26, 2023, 4:52 PM
Athabasca Glacier's terrain helps crews finetune how the robot will slither and slide
A snake-like robot spent a few weeks in Jasper National Park this fall as its NASA handlers trained it for an future mission into outer space.
The Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor, also known as EELS, is a project developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It spent a few weeks being tested at Athabasca Glacier, one of the biggest toes of the massive Columbia Icefield in Alberta.
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As its name conveys (exobiology means life outside of Earth; extant means still in existence), the robot will one day slither through other planets as it searches for evidence of life.
"Yes, it is a giant robotic snake," said Morgan Cable, the science lead of JPL's EELS robotics project. "In this case it's not just an acronym, but a backronym." That's when a descriptive phrase is made to conform to a name as an acronym.
EELS is modular, with cylindrical sections that have their own rotating "screw-like" rings, said Cable.
The team can manipulate the rings to change how EELS moves — for example, using them to grip on ice or mimic the natural movement of real snakes. The robot's movements include straightforward slithering, a screw-like motion and a sideways gait.
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2023-11-26 13:52:00Z
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