English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

In this report for the Nasa NIAC Phase I study, we present a missionarchitecture and a robotic platform, the Shapeshifter, that allow multi-domainand redundant mobility on Saturn's moon Titan, and potentially other bodieswith atmospheres. The Shapeshifter is a collection of simple and affordablerobotic units, called Cobots, comparable to personal palm-size quadcopters. Byattaching and detaching with each other, multiple Cobots can shape-shift intonovel structures, capable of (a) rolling on the surface, to increase thetraverse range, (b) flying in a flight array formation, and (c) swimming on orunder liquid. A ground station complements the robotic platform, hostingscience instrumentation and providing power to recharge the batteries of theCobots. Our Phase I study had the objective of providing an initial assessmentof the feasibility of the proposed robotic platform architecture, and inparticular (a) to characterize the expected science return of a mission to theSotra-Patera region on Titan; (b) to verify the mechanical and algorithmicfeasibility of building a multi-agent platform capable of flying, docking,rolling and un-docking; (c) to evaluate the increased range and efficiency ofrolling on Titan w.r.t to flying; (d) to define a case-study of a mission forthe exploration of the cryovolcano Sotra-Patera on Titan, whose expectedvariety of geological features challenges conventional mobility platforms.

The Shapeshifter: a Morphing, Multi-Agent,Multi-Modal Robotic Platform for the Exploration of Titan (preprint version)