The Australian Centre for Robotic Vision’s LunaRoo project developed a small hopping robot concept for future lunar use. LunaRoo uses jumping as a mechanism by which to overcome obstacles and gain height for imaging the local area. Based on the CubeSat concept, it is compact enough to fit in a 100 millimetre cube, weighs less than 1.3 kilograms and aims to jump to heights of 20 metres on the Moon.

In low gravity environments, LunaRoo can acquire images from a unique perspective (think drone for bodies without atmosphere) for traversability analysis, obstacle detection, and beyond-horizon planning to act as a scout for rovers or humans. It can also use this height to briefly bridge line-of-sight communication gaps or to roam further afield as a rover itself as a long-range explorer. LunaRoo’s primary strengths are its simplicity, small size and weight, and its great terrain traversal properties. It’s a very flexible unit and has been designed with payload space to allow it to carry out a broad range of scientific missions. It is to be solar powered to keep mass down, and to allow for long distance activities. Interaction with the regolith is also an important aspect for any jumping robot and this is accounted for with the design of the mechanism and the inclusion of foot options.

Collaborations with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (USA), the European Space Agency’s Advanced Concepts Team and DLR (Germany) are in the exploratory stages.