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seminar committee are certainly out of date.
The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
In the summer of 1994, Dante II successfully descended into the crater of an active Alaskan volcano using a combination of walking and rappelling locomotion. While linked by satellite to a very remote base station, Dante relied on a suite of sensors and semi-autonomous operational modes to traverse the very challenging terrain. Once at the crater floor, fumarole gas data and detailed video images in addition to high resolution laser-built terrain reconstructions were viewed live by scientists in several US locations. During its ascent out of the crater, Dante tipped over while attempting to climb a steep side slope of muddy ash and had to be recovered.
Much was learned in this fast-paced, high risk research project in areas ranging from robot configuration to telepresence control to field operations and logistics. One measure of the success of the Dante II research is the degree by which the lessons learned can be articulated, communicated and applied to future generations of exploration robots.
Host: Yangsheng Xu (xu+@cs.cmu.edu) Appointment: Ava Cruse (avac@cs.cmu.edu)