Cave exploration robot contest

December 4, 2020 5:32 AM

An Australian team has a combined robot on tracks and drone team for cave exploration Sometimes it's more competent on its own, sometimes the human operators do better. It's not just that it can cover terrain (like steep slippery slopes) that people can't, its navigation skills are sometimes excellent.

While this is an effort to design robots for exploring caves on the moon and Mars, there are caves on earth that can't be fully explored by humans, and I expect this system or another robot system will be used here.

posted by Nancy Lebovitz (10 comments total)

This will be handy for exterminating the last remnants of humanity when we've gone into hiding after the coming robot wars.
posted by whir at 6:32 AM on December 4, 2020 [7 favorites]

Did anyone here read Blind Descent? Gives one an entirely new appreciation for cave exploring, and how dangerous it is. Using drones or robots makes sense because these spaces are so challenging for humans to truly explore.

But there will always be a contingent of cave divers who would prefer to go down to the depths instead of sending a machine.
posted by glaucon at 7:04 AM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

glaucon, I've read Blind Descent. My assumption is that that robots will be good for routes which are simply impossible for humans rather than very risky.

I don't know how expert cavers will feel about routes which are checked first by robots but still very challenging for humans.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:28 AM on December 4, 2020

"its navigation skills are sometimes excellent"

Yeah, mine too, but for some reason everyone seems to insist on describing my navigation skills as "gets lost a lot."
posted by oddman at 7:31 AM on December 4, 2020 [2 favorites]

Very cool!
posted by doctornemo at 8:47 AM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

The winner gets a custom "pedo guy" tweet from Elon Musk.
posted by TrialByMedia at 11:19 AM on December 4, 2020 [4 favorites]

>I don't know how expert cavers will feel about routes which are checked first by robots but still very challenging for humans.

If cavers are anything like rock climbers, they'll still want to be the first person there. most cliffs are visible to everyone, either from the ground or helicopter, but the challenge/bragging rights come from getting up it with only certain tools/techniques.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 3:46 PM on December 4, 2020

Great now the robots are taking work away from D&D adventuring parties
posted by The otter lady at 9:42 PM on December 4, 2020 [4 favorites]

mrgoldenbrown, you've got a point, but I assume there's also a thrill for cavers to seeing things which have never been seen by anyone else before.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:01 PM on December 4, 2020

I have spent a little bit of time in caves (so I'm not surprised so many cave managers said 'absolutely not', since most have very strict conservation rules about not damaging the caves, especially with drones). My above-ground navigation skills, I say without false modesty, are excellent; I can read maps, I've got good spatial awareness, I can plan and follow a route, I can usually use any number of intellectual or physical tools to orient myself. Below ground, forget it, I can do 'up' and 'down' probably with 50% confidence.

This is a job for robots.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:02 PM on December 6, 2020