I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Light-powered nanocardboard robots dancing in the Martian sky searching for alien life
- Reference: 1587622266
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/23/nanocardboard_mars_robots/
- Source link:
Wait, nanocardboard, you ask? Yup. In this instance, this novel material is made of aluminum oxide tubes arranged in an alternating basket-weave pattern to form a hollow plate just 50nm thick. Outside gasses can pass through the tubes, and when light shines on one side of the nanocardboard, it creates a temperature difference that causes the gas to make it lift off.
This particular design was produced by an engineering team at the University of Pennsylvania; other approaches, inspired by corrugated paper cardboard, were previously [1]put forward .
[2]
Behold your artist's illustration of nanocardboard robots hovering in the sky
Image credit: Bargatin Group, Penn Engineering ... Click to enlarge
“The air current through these micro-channels is caused by a classical phenomenon called thermal creep, which is a rarefied gas flow due to the temperature gradient along the channel wall,” Howard Hu, co-author of a paper [3]published in Advanced Materials describing the material, [4]said this week.
Hu, a mechanical engineering professor at the American university, and his colleagues envision a fleet of nanocardboard robots flitting around Mars, propelled by just the Sun's rays and the Red Planet's thin atmosphere. It helps that the unforgiving dust world's gravity is roughly a third of Earth's.
“The levitation mechanism works best at pressures between 1 and 1000 Pascals,” Igor Bargatin, lead author of the study and an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the university, told The Register . “Mars has an atmospheric pressure is about 600 Pascals on average, which is within the sweet spot of photophoretic levitation.”
They estimate that these minuscule flecks of material could carry payloads up to ten times their weight. Each nanocardboard plate weighs just a third of a milligram, so whatever it transports has to be incredibly light too.
NASA reveals the new wavy Martian wheels it thinks can crush the red planet [5]READ MORE
But if they could be packed with tiny chemical sensors, they could help scientists probe for possible signs of life. “On Mars, looking for water or methane would be very interesting. Water is probably necessary for life on Mars and methane may be produced by life,” Bargatin added.
Although the nanoscale material seems promising, experiments with prototype samples showed these nanocardboard bots only rise about a centimetre off ground, and have only carried mock payloads made out of silicone rings.
“We need to optimize the lift force and payload first. After that, we need to work on stability and control issues, for example, how do you get the microflyer exactly where you want it to go despite the wind gusts and other perturbations?” Bargatin said.
Still, the boffins can dream. They hope that their nanocardboard material could one day be used in space exploration. Deploying numerous tiny robots has advantages over heavy, complex machinery, such as NASA's [6]helicopter-like Martian drone , Bargatin reckoned.
“The Mars Helicopter is very exciting, but it’s still a single, complicated machine," he said. "If anything goes wrong, your experiment is over, since there’s no way of fixing it. We’re proposing an entirely different approach that doesn’t put all of your eggs in one basket.” ®
Sponsored: [7]How to Build Your Digital Experience Portfolio
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06818-6
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/04/22/nanocardboard.jpg
[3] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adma.201906878
[4] https://medium.com/penn-engineering/penn-engineers-nanocardboard-flyers-could-serve-as-martian-atmospheric-probes-36ff86a81e0e
[5] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/06/nasa_reveals_perserverance_rover_grouser_wheel_design/
[6] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/06/nasa_reveals_perserverance_rover_grouser_wheel_design/
[7] https://go.theregister.co.uk/tl/1936/-8578/how-to-build-your-digital-experience-portfolio?td=wptl1936
Re: Nice article!
"I had not heard of the thermal creep effect"
You might have met a few of them.
How to make it go where you want?
Just have lots and lots and lots of them, and let them go where they will.
Paging Von Neuman! Von Neuman to the white courtesy phone please!
Re: How to make it go where you want?
"Paging Von Neuman! Von Neuman to the white courtesy phone please!"
For some reason, reading the article I was reminded of [1]Universal Paperclips .
[1] https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index.html
How do you talk to them?
Surely the real difficulty is getting the data back?
Every fleck will need a radio tx and power supply for it, or it won't matter what experiments it carries.
Re: How do you talk to them?
And with a third of a milligram as payload, there's not going to be much more than the transmitter - if they even get that in there.
"third of a milligram"
They weigh a third of a milligram each, but can carry up to ten times their weight. So the payload would be more than a third of a milligram.
Also bear in mind, as usual, this is lab experiment / prototype stuff, not final production. The first transistor was pretty crap compared to what came after.
C.
Re: "third of a milligram"
Comparison... nRF24 radio chip loved by some Arduino users (without PCB, antenna, etc) is apparently 4mmx4mmx0.95mm... assuming the density is identical to Si and I can do the maths, then it weighs 35mg.
Re: How do you talk to them?
What's more, the signal will have to get through the thickening swarm of nano-satellites flitting through the Earth's sky.
looks interesting but not for somewhere dusty?
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.03900.pdf
Roboroach
I remember reading that UC Berkeley and Russian researchers have both come up with robot cockroaches, maybe swarms of those could be developed to explore Mars. Use a PV carapace to extend their range and for more remote exploration drop them by helicopter.
Let's face it, everywhere man goes he takes rats and 'roaches with him.
Pollution
It doesn't sound very environmentally friendly
Re: Pollution
If we're ever going to send astronauts to Mars, the least we can do is make it feel like home
Nice article!
In spite of studying physics for a few semesters I had not heard of the thermal creep effect. Thanks!