Robots

Aeroscout demonstrated 3D navigation of an air vehicle operating in close proximity to structures, building, trees and wires.

We are developing low cost airboats: flat-bottomed boats that use an above-water fan to propel themselves forward safely and effectively through shallow or debris-filled water.

Ambler was a walking robot that enabled energy-efficient overlapping gaits. Developed as a testbed for research in walking robots operating in rugged terrain.

Andy 2 was one rover prototype built for the Google Lunar X-Prize challenge. Mobility tests were conducted at NASA Glenn Research Center on material equivalent to lunar sand. <iframe width="830" height="467" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E__U7zUuuGI" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Designed to autonomously and efficiently dig and load trucks.

An automated system that safely and economically removes asbestos insulation from old pipes. It packages waste into barrels for easy disposal.

Robotic Mule for the Army.

Boatbot is a test platform for developing control algorithms for open water environments. Boatbot is divided with three bulkheads, one of which is for science payloads.

Boss won the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007.

Coordinated Mobile Manipulation for manufacturing and assembly.

Cave Crawler is smaller, lighter, faster, and more mobile than its Groundhog predecessor. In addition, it is equipped with two integrated sensor modules (developed by the Subterranean Robotics group) that perform SLAM in addition to sensory output.

This vehicle drilled core samples from the walls of the Three Mile Island basement to determine the depth and severity of radioactive material that soaked into the concrete at the site. Core drilling was automated to retrieve radiated concrete samples after a nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. Technical challenges included reaction, compliance, drilling, breakout, capture and isolation from washdown procedures. See also: <a href="https://www.ri.cmu.edu/robot/remote-reconaissance-vehicle/">Remote Reconnaissance Vehicle</a>, <a href="https://www.ri.cmu.edu/robot/remote-work-vehicle/">Remote Work Vehicle</a> [gallery ids="147260,147257,147226"]

The DEPTHX vehicle is a hovering AUV designed for exploration of flooded caverns and tunnels.

Daedelus’ legs remained vertical to keep this unique walker configuration from bumping its shins. This feature reduced gait planning from 3D to 2D. Its lengthy stroke maximized clearance and achieved remarkable mobility.

Dante rappels mountainsides using a spherical laser scanner and foot sensors. It entered the crater of Antarctica’s Mt. Erebus but did not reach the lava lake.

Demeter autonomously mows hay and alphalpa. It navigates with GPS and uses camera vision to differentiate cut and uncut crops.

Developed to investigate the use of a solar-powered dirigible for collection of environmental data.

Autonomous off road vehicle for driving in fun off road environments.

The DARPA Subterranean or “SubT” Challenge robots that demonstrate novel approaches to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments during time-sensitive combat operations or disaster response scenarios.

The Ferret mine mapping robot can be lowered down a borehole and produce three-dimensional maps using sonar and laser range finders that can then be used to assess mine conditions.

Robot for subterranean mapping and exploration. This robot mapped several deep mines in the wake of an accident at the Quecreek mine that left 9 miners trapped.

Guideway inspection system in operation at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.

H1ghlander competed in and finished 3rd in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge.

Houdini cleans up hazardous materials from waste filled tanks. It transforms itself to a small, streamlined shape for entering a tank, then expands to a large, stable shape for heavy work.

A robot for characterizing the limits of life in desert environments.

A solar powered rover that proved the concept of Sun-Synchronous navigation in the Canadian high Arctic.

Icebreaker is designed to traverse into dark steep lunar craters. Icebreaker features a novel plow device that allows it to maintain control and minimize slip while descending steep unconsolidated angle of repose slopes.

Iris, a small, boxy robot designed by CMU students, was mounted to the Astrobotic lander and launched in January 2024.

This chassis steers and propels all wheels so that it can spin, drive, or spin while driving. Its software can emulate a tank, car or any other wheeled machine.

Testbed for navigation in unstructured outdoor terrain.

Mine Haulage innovated GPS-based autonomous driving and safeguarding inventions to pioneer the automation of trucks in surface mines.

The moon lander is a robot capable of landing a payload rover onto the lunar surface. The lander uses sensors, rockets, and mapping software for precision landings.

MoonRanger, a small robotic rover being developed by Carnegie Mellon University and its spinoff Astrobotic, has completed its preliminary design review in preparation for a future mission to search for signs of water at the moon's south pole. For more, read this <a href="https://www.scs.cmu.edu/news/cmu-moonranger-will-search-water-moons-south-pole">story on the CMU School of Computer Science website</a>. <iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AlvfVrmF7pE" width="1190" height="669" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Surrogate for MoonRanger Localization Testing in the CMU Moonyard

Pioneered high performance outdoor navigation. NavLab deployed racks of computers, laser scanners, and color cameras providing cutting-edge perception in its time.

This automated HUMMER pioneered trinocular vision, WARP computing, and sensor fusion to navigate offroad terrain.

Neptune articulates magnetic tracks to roam the interiors of fuel storage tanks. It evaluates deterioration in floors and walls using acoustic navigation and corrosion sensing. Learn more...

Robot for autonomous exploration of planet-like deserts. It pioneered spherical vision and long-range navigation. Shown here in the Chilean Atacama desert.

A winterized Nomad searched for and classified meteorites in Antarctica.

This autonomous orchard vehicle can mow and spray entire orchard blocks without any human supervision. It can also assist workers in tasks such as thinning fruit, pruning, and harvesting.

Radiation-hardened remote reconnaissance system for structural analysis of Reactor 4 at Chornobyl.

Mobile pipe mapping computes magnetic and radar data over a dense grid to infer the depth and location of buried pipes. This outperforms hand-held pipe detectors.

World's first robot for inspecting the inside of Uranium process pipes to analyze deposits.

Polaris prospects for water at the lunar poles. Polaris is capable of driving and avoiding obstacles autonomously including traverses into dark regions in the lunar pole’s long shadows.

REX was the world’s first autonomous digging machine. It sensed and planned to excavate without damaging buried gas pipes. This robot used a hypersonic air knife to erode soil around pipes.

RadPiper is a pipe-crawling robot specialized for autonomous measurement of U-235 deposit within uranium enrichment piping.

The shape of this moon rover moderates extreme lunar temperatures while gathering sunpower and rejecting heat. The simplicity achieves mobility and reliability with a minimum of moving parts.

ReefBot is a Pittsburgh-based team of individuals committed to developing and using underwater robotic technology for the purpose of ocean exploration, education, and coral reef conservation.

First vehicle to enter the basement of Three Mile Island after a meltdown in March 1979. This vehicle worked four years to survey and clean up the flooded basement beginning in 1984. From <a href="https://www.ri.cmu.edu/ri-faculty/william-red-l-whittaker/">Red Whittaker's Page</a> <blockquote>The first machines that initiated “field robotics”: (1982) addressed a need to remotely inspect the aftermath of a nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. The Remote Reconnaissance Vehicle brought back the first footage from the flooded basement of the damaged reactor. The Remote Core Sampler returned samples of the walls and the Remote Work Vehicle was built to do a large number of tasks inside the basement. Pioneer (1998), a mobile mapping and reconnaissance machine for structural assessment was deployed at the damaged Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Tesselator (1992) was developed for automated inspection and waterproofing of the tiles on the Space Shuttle. Tugbot (2006) surveyed an 1800-acre site in Nevada for hazards and buried objects.</blockquote> <iframe width="837" height="628" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bOaaA7tfSBw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> [gallery ids="147225,147226,147223"]

The Remote Work Vehicle was developed for a broad agenda of clean-up operations like washing contaminated surfaces, removing sediments, demolishing radiated structures, applying surface treatments, and packaging and transporting materials. See also: <a href="https://www.ri.cmu.edu/robot/remote-reconaissance-vehicle/">Remote Reconnaissance Vehicle</a>, <a href="https://www.ri.cmu.edu/robot/coresampler/">Core Sampler</a> [gallery ids="147257,109608"]

Cooperative robots for autonomous assembly of structures.

Rosie is a tethered mobile worksystem designed for decontamination and dismantlement applications.

High-performance off-road navigator for racing in the DARPA Grand Challenge in the California desert.

Scarab is a prototype rover for lunar polar exploration. Its unique configuration allows it to adjust body posture for ascent and descent of craters and to position a coring drill for soil sampling.

An assembly, inspection and maintenance robot for orbital structures.

This autonomous excavator was the first to use a bucket for robotic digging. It can sense how much dirt it is moving and how to dig around buried rocks.

TerraScout is developing fundamental technology for autonomous outdoor vehicles to navigate outdoors. These scouts assist their human counterparts by providing eyes and ears in dangerous locations.

Terregator pioneered exploration, road following and mine mapping. It was the world’s first rugged, capable, autonomous outdoor navigation robot.

Developed to inspect and waterproof the tiles underneath the space shuttle.

The Robotanist is designed to navigate beneath the canopy of row crops such as sorghum or corn while carrying a plant manipulator and an array of non-contact sensors. The vast quantity of data collected is used to help plant breeders and geneticists map phenotypes to genetic markers, which in turn will substantially improve the rate of genetic gain.

The TraderBots auction-based task allocation system enables efficient and robust coordination of teams in dynamic and uncertain conditions.

Trestle develops multi-agent coordination for teams of humans and robots performing complex assembly tasks such as intended for structures in earth-orbit.

TugBot was developed to search for hazards and buried objects and sucessfully surveyed an 1800-acre site in Nevada.

This system mows large areas of turf such as at golf courses, sports fields, and parks, with high precision.

Yogi is an automated golf cart that serves as a testbed for autonomous navigation.

Equipped with specialized sensors, Zoe roams the Atacama desert in search of life. Just like its predecessor Hyperion, Zoe has an array of solar cells to collect energy from the sun and plan its day to maximize science returns while maintaining battery levels. Zoë made trips to Arizona and Utah in 2023 and 2024 and continues to be an exploring workhorse!