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A good watch can take a beating and keep on ticking. With the right parts, can a rover do the same on a planet like Venus?
A concept inspired by clockwork computers and World War I tanks could one day help us find out.
[...] AREE was first proposed in 2015 by Jonathan Sauder, a mechatronics engineer at JPL. He was inspired by mechanical computers, which use levers and gears to make calculations rather than electronics.
By avoiding electronics, a rover might be able to better explore Venus. The planet's hellish atmosphere creates pressures that would crush most submarines. Its average surface temperature is 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius), high enough to melt lead.
[...] Another problem will be communications. Without electronics, how would you transmit science data? Current plans are inspired by another age-old technology: Morse code.
An orbiting spacecraft could ping the rover using radar. The rover would have a radar target, which if shaped correctly, would act like "stealth technology in reverse," Sauder said. Stealth planes have special shapes that disperse radar signals; Sauder is exploring how to shape these targets to brightly reflect signals instead. Adding a rotating shutter in front of the radar target would allow the rover to turn the bright, reflected spot on and off, communicating much like signal lamps on Navy ships.
Mechanical computers and Morse code. The future of Venusian exploration is steampunk.
(Score: 4, Informative) by crafoo on Wednesday August 30 2017, @04:19AM (1 child)
Not being rude, but it sounds like you grew up well after the microprocessor. That's the paradigm you think in with respect to computing. Have you ever seen mechanical fire control computers on Navy ships? They calculated trajectories, in-flight times, and compensated for wind, curve of the earth, all kinds of shit.
Consider that the 3D surface profile (shape) of a freeform rotating cylinder encodes a f(x,y) parametric equation with a 3D coordinate output. Put a cam follower on it and physically dial-in the answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4 [youtube.com]
You are thinking in terms of building a generic, general purpose microprocessor with sensor inputs, A/D, and communications. But that's not what they are proposing.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday August 30 2017, @05:15AM
Yup, I know about that stuff. I know about the old analog electronic computers too. But they are proposing sending this thing with zero reception capability, that means it has to be smarter than any of that stuff can do in the size and weight limitations of a typical rover. Optimized hardware can replace big stacks of software, usually with better performance in response time, even in the digital realm, as anyone who has dealt with embedded knows. In the end though, you need software if a machine is going to make many decisions. There is a reason almost everything has been replaced with software. Launching a few dozen and hoping one gets into a spot where a canned route won't end in a disaster isn't cost effective.
Wonder if a computer couldn't be kept alive long enough to sense the area near the lander, do the hard work of plotting out a route, drill points for samples, etc. and write all that to a mechanically readable "program" for a purely mechanical system to playback weeks / months after the electronics are fried. Then it slowly creeps along as it also slowly sends back telemetry. Just that much would be a challenge in a purely mechanical drive. Just saying turn 45 degrees left, drive 2.4 meters wouldn't be accurate enough, it would need to know how to compensate for driving over uneven ground, track slippage, etc. to avoid becoming hopelessly lost within a few days.