Engineers develop robots to house-hunt and scout real estate in space

Fink and team have published a paper in Advances in Space Research that details a "communication network that would link rovers, lake landers, and even submersible vehicles through a so-called mesh topology network, allowing the machines to work together as a team, independently from human input," according to a press release. The scientists named their patent-pending concept the "Breadcrumb-Style Dynamically Deployed Communication Network" paradigm or DDCN, based on the fairy tale'Hansel and Gretel'. According to Fink, DDCN could help resolve one of NASA's Space Technology Grand Challenges by helping overcome the limited ability of current technology to safely traverse environments on comets, asteroids, moons, and planetary bodies. "If you remember the book, you know how Hansel and Gretel dropped breadcrumbs to make sure they'd find their way back. In our scenario, the'breadcrumbs' are miniaturized sensors that piggyback on the rovers, which deploy the sensors as they traverse a cave or other subsurface environment," explained Fink.