The Hedgehog project, which is being jointly developed by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Stanford University and MIT, will hop and tumble in space, rather than roll, like conventional space rovers. The researchers are currently working on Hedgehog's autonomy, trying to increase how much the robots can do by themselves without instructions from Earth. "The idea of a robot that can move on its own without any human intervention has been around for decades, but this new design allows us to do it with unprecedented efficiency," said JPL scientist John The researchers are reportedly working on improving robot autonomy so that they can perform tasks more independently. The Hedgehog is also low in cost, relative to conventional space rovers, meaning multiple robots could be taken to space on one flight to improve research.
The Hedgehog project, which is being jointly developed by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Stanford University and MIT, will hop and tumble in space, rather than roll, like conventional space rovers. "The idea of a robot that can move on its own without any human intervention has been around for decades, but this new design allows us to do it with unprecedented efficiency," said JPL scientist John The researchers are reportedly working on improving robot autonomy so that they can perform tasks more independently. The Hedgehog is also low in cost, relative to conventional space rovers, meaning multiple robots could be taken to space on one flight to improve research.