[Gizmodo]
The world’s most amazing athlete works for NASA. Meet the gigantic, six-legged, tool-wielding robot that can hop around an asteroid. Tiger Woods ain’t got nothin’.
The robot you see in the video is a half-scale model of a vehicle that NASA wants to send on a human mission to the moon. Half. This thing is 4m tall. It’s naked in the video, but when it eventually launches, it’ll have a payload on its back. It’ll probably house a ton of tools and gear, and even temporary space for a crew of one or two. It’s the lunar rover’s mutant, roboinsectoid big brother, and it’s incredible. …
Oh, and it does all of this in 3D. ATHLETE is a super-spider (with six legs, I know. Maybe it was in a fight?). Not only does it have tons of eyes, but the eyes all come in pairs, enabling perhaps the only useful implementation of 3D ever. The drive cameras, hazard avoidance cameras (haz-cams), and tool cams are all stereoscopic. When you’re navigating a foreign world, two dimensions aren’t going to cut it. You need depth-perception. You need to see the world as if you were standing there. …
Read the full story here: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/02/the-robot-that-can-leap-over-asteroids/