Oregon Researchers Train Dog-Like Robots in Desert Sands to Prepare for Future Mars Missions

Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU), having made field trips to Mount Hood in 2023 and 2024, recently spent five days teaching quadruped robots to walk on the sands of Mars and beyond from the sands of New Mexico for future science exploration on other celestial bodies.

Oregon Quadruped Robot Training For Outer Space Missions

OSU researchers who spent five days conducting experiments this month at White Sands National Park in New Mexico are closer to equipping a dog-like robot to conduct science on the surface of Mars.

The LASSIE Project (Legged Autonomous Surface Science in Analog Environments) includes engineers, cognitive scientists, geoscientists, and planetary scientists from several institutions, including OSU and the NASA Johnson Space Center. NASA funds it, and the trip builds on research that has enabled NASA to send rovers and a helicopter to Mars.

Robotics researcher in the College of Engineering at OSU. Cristina Wilson said, “It’s the next frontier and takes advantage of the unique capabilities of legged robots.”

Serving as an analog environment for Mars, and the scientists are conducting field test scenarios in the national park to inform future Mars operations with astronauts, dog-like robots known as quadruped robots, rovers and scientists at Mission Control on Earth, building on similar experiments by the team with the same robot on the slopes of Mount Hood in Oregon, which simulated the landscape on the Moon.

This month’s trip to New Mexico was the second time the research team visited the national park, after an initial trip in 2023. Data gathered by the scientists from the feet of the quadruped robots during these field sessions measures mechanical responses to foot-surface interactions.

Wilson explained that much like the human foot standing on ground senses the stability of the surface as things shift, the legged robots can potentially feel the exact same thing. Data gleaned from each step the robot takes delivers information to help its future performance in places like the Moon or Mars.

The triple-digit high temperatures at White Sands this month meant the team started field work at sunrise and wrapped by late morning because of the rising heat index and its effect on the researchers and the power supply to the robots.

Cristina Wilson confirmed that “Our group is very committed to putting quadrupeds on the Moon and on Mars.”

During the trip, improvements to the algorithms refined over the years led to the robot acting autonomously and making its own decisions for the first time- necessary qualities for when they are on the surface of Mars with an astronaut, as the two would act independently, increasing the amount of scientific work that could be accomplished.

Testing was also done on different ways for the robot to move depending on surface conditions, which could lead to increased energy efficiency.