As NASA’s exploration missions on planetary terrains become more aggressive, a focus on alternative modes of locomotion for rovers is necessary. In addition to climbing steep slopes, the terrain in these extreme environments is often unknown and can be extremely hard to traverse, increasing the likelihood of a vehicle or robot becoming damaged or immobilized. The conventional driving mode in wh...

Boguslawsky crater (72.9°S, 43.3°E, 100 km in diameter) is a primary target for the Luna-Glob mission. The crater has a morphologically smooth (at the resolution of WAC images), flat, and horizontal floor, which is about 55–60 km in diameter. Two ellipses were selected as specific candidate landing areas on the floor: the western ellipse is centered at 72.9°S, 41.3°E and the eastern ellipse is ...

Solution-based deposition techniques are widely considered to be a route to low-cost, high-throughput photovoltaic device fabrication. In this report, we establish a methodology for a highly scalable deposition process and report the synthesis of an air-stable, vulcanized ink from commercially available precursors. Using our air-stable ink rolling (AIR) process, we can make solar cells with an ...

There is an Iurgent need for automatic systems for quality control of flat steel products to meet the ever increasing demand from customers, and for process control to prevent damage to production. To achieve these goals, those inspection systems should detect and recognize defects using image processing and pattern recognition methods. Such complex systems are difficult to compare and the spec...

Wheeled and tracked vehicles are mainly suitable for relatively flat terrain. Legged vehicles, on the other hand, have the potential to handle a wide variety of terrain. This article presents a new locomotion concept, adapted to both flat and complex rough terrain by combining the advantages of wheeled and legged vehicels. MATE-1 is a bipedal robot equipped with two special grippers which provi...

This paper investigates a set of novel techniques that lead to modular, deployable surface arrays which could be either flat or curved in their deployed shape. The two components of the proposed concepts are thin shells with smooth folds and spatial mechanisms with rolling hinges. Kinematics of the mechanism and motion of the shell has been shown to be fully compatible with each other during fo...

A circular shape placed on an incline will roll; similarly, an irregularly shaped object, such as the Archimedean spiral, will roll on a flat surface when a force is applied to its axle. This rolling is dependent on the specific shape and the applied force (magnitude and location). In this paper, we derive formulas that define the behavior of irregular 2D and 3D shapes on a flat plane when a we...

AIM To investigate the effect of inducible nitric oxide synthases (iNOS) on inflammatory reactions during endotoxin-induced uveitis (EIU) in mice by studying leukocyte-endothelial cell interactions. METHODS EIU was produced in immunosuppressed iNOS(-/-) mice and C57BL/6 (normal) mice by footpad injection of lipopolysaccharide. Leukocytes were labelled with acridine orange. Leukocyte rolling i...