A team of MIT engineers has developed a system of universal robotic parts that an astronaut could easily mix and match to create different robots to perform various missions on the moon. The team calls the system WORMS, for the Walking Oligomeric Robotic Mobility System. The system's parts include worm-inspired robotic limbs that an astronaut can easily snap onto a base and work together as a walking robot. Depending on the mission, parts can be configured to build, for instance, large "pack" bots capable of carrying heavy solar panels up a hill. The same parts could be reconfigured into six-legged spider bots that can be lowered into a lava tube to drill for frozen water. The design is flexible, sustainable, and cost-effective. Once a mission is completed, a robot can be disassembled and its parts used to configure a new robot to meet a different task.

The team took inspiration from animals. A spider could drop down and explore a lava tube, a line of elephants could carry heavy equipment while supporting each other down a steep slope, and a goat tethered to an ox could help lead the larger animal up the side of a hill as it transports an array of solar panels. The system is simple and easy to use. Astronauts could go into the shed, pick the worms they need, along with the right shoes, body, sensors, and tools, and snap everything together, then disassemble it to make a new one. The team has built and demonstrated a six-legged WORMS robot, and last week they presented their results at IEEE's Aerospace Conference, where they also received the conference's Best Paper Award.

When astronauts begin to build a permanent base on the moon, robots could potentially do the heavy lifting by laying cables, deploying solar panels, erecting communications towers, and building habitats. A mix-and-match kit of robotic parts could enable astronauts to build a menagerie of lunar exploration bots to avoid a bottleneck of bots, each designed for a specific action or task.

That Crazy Genius Professor At Your Fingertips

Say goodbye to boring study sessions and hello to interactive, personalised learning. Connect with our advanced engineering textbooks on Discord and receive instant answers to your questions, grasp complex problems with ease and strengthen your knowledge with quizzes rhymes and poems. Get expert assistance in approaching your studies, finding topics and solving practice problems. Click the link now to elevate your engineering game!

🔋 Revolutionary Material Could Slash Power Plant Heat Emissions

West Virginia University researchers engineer game-changing oxide ceramic for thermoelectric generators

In a world where energy efficiency is becoming increasingly important, scientists at West Virginia University have engineered a material that could be a game-changer in the fight against climate change. Using nanostructure engineering, they have created an oxide ceramic material that can significantly cut the amount of heat released into the atmosphere from power plants.

According to Xueyan Song, the professor and George B. Berry Chair of Engineering at the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, her team has achieved "the best thermoelectric oxide ceramics reported in the field worldwide over the past 20 years." This breakthrough material could open up new research directions that could further increase performance.

The thermoelectric generators that can produce electricity from heat emissions have been hampered by efficiency issues in the past. The polycrystalline structures of oxide ceramics, with their multiple connected crystals, can cause "grain boundaries" that block the flow of current and electrons, rendering them inefficient for thermoelectric applications.

But the researchers at West Virginia University have ingeniously converted this problem into a solution by intentionally adding "dopants," or metal ions, into the polycrystal ceramics, driving special kinds of dopants to segregate to the grain boundaries. This clever approach has turned the unavoidable and detrimental grain boundaries into electricity-conducting pathways, significantly improving thermoelectric performance.

As waste heat is a significant contributor to climate change, the new material could play a crucial role in balancing the growing demand for electricity against the carbon footprint of industrial processes. Although waste heat recovery technology is projected to exceed $70 billion by 2026, the current technology is too inefficient to be economical for most applications. But with the development of the nanostructure engineered oxide ceramic material, thermoelectric generators could capture a significant portion of a power plant's waste heat.

So, as we continue to look for ways to improve energy efficiency and reduce our carbon footprint, this breakthrough in thermoelectric oxide ceramics could help us reach our goal. Who knew that a material that's in the same family as pottery, porcelain, clay bricks, cement, and silicon could be such a game-changer?