Techno - Nomad, a robot on ice from CMU
Nomad, one of the Carnegie Mellon University’s most advanced robotic rover, was already deployed in Chile and Antartica (1997 & 2000).
Nomad, which has been upgraded with sensors and computing to increase its ability to act independently, first gained notoriety in 1997 when it traveled through the Atacama and again in 2000 when it autonomously discovered meteorites in Antarctica and became the first robot to perform science on its own.
In the past, Nomad has largely been teleoperated, but for the LORAX expedition, it was given the “brains” of another robot called Zoé that has been surveying microscopic life in the Atacama Desert.
“The goal of this field experiment was to establish that Nomad’s mobility on snow and ice and our technology for autonomous navigation meet the requirements for survey traverse in the Antarctic,” said Robotics Institute Associate Research Professor David Wettergreen.
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