Maybe bad ass means something different to you. But to me, any robot designed to function autonomously, especially one designed to do so on another planet... is pretty bad ass. Meet the Seeker, a construct of the ESA (European Space Agency) this bad boy was designed and built within six months. An impressive feat considering other agencies such as NASA, have spent years upon years designing and constructing rovers of their own.
The team responsible for creating this robotic marvel, was challenged with creating a rover that would autonomously make decisions on its own, travel 6kms in a Mars-like environment, and then return to it's starting point.
After extensive testing indoors the team took the Seeker to the Atacama Desert, and during the course of two weeks, put the rover through bout after bout of extensive real world testing. During these tests the robot was set loose to do as it was programed to do, team members only used radio communication to keep tabs on the bot as it sailed out of view.
This robot is scheduled to land on Mars in 2018. For more information check out a very informative link at gizmag.com, or check back here often as I will be posting updates as they become available.
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