Seattle-based WiBotic says it’s working on a wireless charging system and energy management software for moon rovers, in partnership with Astrobotic, Bosch and the University of Washington.
The hardware and software for robotic lunar missions will build on the work that the UW spin-out has done on similar systems for applications here on Earth.
“We’ve conquered marine robotic systems, mobile terrestrial robots, aerial drones — and now, space,” WiBotic CEO and co-founder Ben Waters told GeekWire.
The team-up is supported by a $5.8 million NASA “Tipping Point” contract to overcome the power challenges that will face robots on the moon’s surface. One of the biggest challenges will be providing electric-powered rovers with enough juice to keep them active during the cold lunar night, which lasts two weeks.
Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic is the prime contractor. It aims to use WiBotic’s charging system on lunar rovers that will include its own CubeRover, a shoebox-sized, four-wheeled robot that would venture forth from a base station to take on exploration tasks.
“Bringing wireless power technology to the surface of the moon and beyond is a game-changer in the way space robotics systems have traditionally interacted,” Cedric Corpa de la Fuente, electrical engineer for planetary mobility at Astrobotic, said today in a news release.
“For instance, by removing dependencies to solar charging, a new wide range of opportunities for smaller and lighter systems becomes available for missions that were not within reach before — such as survival of lunar night missions,” he said.
WiBotic’s rapid-charging system uses paired antennas and receivers to transfer electrical power wirelessly and safely, for drones and underwater robots as well as autonomous robots at industrial sites. For robotic missions on the moon, Waters said, “the goal would be to have at least some energy for the robot to go do maybe a one-hour mission during the lunar night.”
Waters said WiBotic’s energy management software is designed to work hand in hand with the hardware, on Earth and on the moon.
“Monitoring the energy is crucially important,” he explained. “We certainly wouldn’t want the solar panels on the lander to be compromised and drain the batteries out because we were trying to charge the robot.”
That becomes even more important once a network of multiple robots and charging stations is set up on the moon. Waters said WiBotic is aiming for its system to transfer a maximum of 100 watts of power from solar charging stations.
Operations on the moon can easily stir up lunar soil, or regolith, which has a low level of electrical conductivity. For that reason, it might make more sense to charge up the rover from above, rather than putting a charging pad on the surface.
“The robot will be able to get close to, but doesn’t have to be perfectly aligned with, the charging pad,” he said. “It’s likely that it won’t be docking with perfect accuracy every time. So that added flexibility, the tens of centimeters that we can enable, is very important.”
Bosch, an international industrial technology firm with its U.S. headquarters in Michigan, will contribute software expertise in wireless connectivity and artificial intelligence. The University of Washington’s Sensor Systems Laboratory will provide support for testing and validation under simulated lunar conditions.
Waters said WiBotic will be working on the Tipping Point development project over the next 24 to 30 months. “As a result of this work, we hope to have a ready-to-go, space-qualified system,” he said. “And as for deployment, that would be on a subsequent mission. It’s not entirely clear when that would be, but more than likely it would be 2023 at the earliest.”
Astrobotic is due to send NASA’s VIPER rover to the moon in late 2023 to study water ice in permanently shadowed regions of the south polar region — a mission that could probably use a recharging system like Wibotic’s.
In an email, Waters told GeekWire that the Tipping Point project was focused on the much smaller CubeRover concept rather than on VIPER. “But to your point, the WiBotic system is meant to be interoperable with other devices/robots,” he said. “So in theory it could be applied to other robots in the future, and that is our hope.”
Waters said WiBotic’s terrestrlal products are likely to benefit from some of the innovations that come out of the project — for example, the development of a passive cooling system rather than a fan-cooled system for the battery-charging hardware. But he has his eye on farther-out space applications as well.
“As you probably know, for some of the robots that have previously been deployed to Mars, power has been their demise,” he said, in reference to nearly every solar-powered robot that’s been sent to the Red Planet. “The solar panels get covered up with dust, they can never get enough light to recharge, and then the battery dies. And then that’s it.”
Waters noted that the NASA mission currently heading to Mars will conduct the first-ever test of a battery-powered helicopter on another planet. “We hope that there will be many more types of robots and drones deployed in space, whether that’s the moon or Mars,” he said. “I think this will be a great first dive into developing these space-qualified systems, but certainly down the road, we hope that there are opportunities to deploy on other planets with other robots as well.”
