A SMART robot called Nomad has joined the search for meteorites in eastern Antarctica. Nomad is roaming the ice as part of a NASA-funded project to develop autonomous robots that could explore the surfaces of other planets.
“This is not a case of a human sitting there operating the robot with a joystick,” says Ralph Harvey, head of the Robotic Search for Antarctic Meteorites Program. “The robot is doing the search itself, and making decisions on its own.”
Nomad is fitted with cameras to help it navigate and estimate the distance to objects, a laser rangefinder to detect obstacles in…
