Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute
CMU's Robotics Institute (est. 1979) has built space robots since the 1980s, including MoonRanger, an autonomous lunar rover flying on Blue Ghost in 2029.
The Robotics Institute (RI) is part of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was launched in October 1979 with a five-year, five-million-dollar commitment from Westinghouse and early backing from the Office of Naval Research. It is one of the largest academic robotics organisations in the world. It offers bachelor's, master's (MSR, MRSD, MSCV) and doctoral robotics programmes, and its research covers autonomous vehicles, manipulation, computer vision, medical robotics and field robotics. The RI says it has been NASA's most significant partner in space robotics research since the 1980s. Its space robots have been tested in the Arctic, the Atacama Desert, inside a volcano and underwater.
Its main flight project is MoonRanger, a suitcase-sized autonomous lunar rover. It was developed by CMU with its spinout Astrobotic, which is prime contractor, and with NASA Ames Research Center, which designed the rover's neutron spectrometer. NASA awarded Astrobotic $5.6 million for MoonRanger in 2019. The rover passed NASA's key decision point review and is assigned to a 2029 Commercial Lunar Payload Services delivery near the lunar south pole on Firefly Aerospace's Elytra orbital vehicle and Blue Ghost lander, alongside a Canadian Space Agency rover. MoonRanger will weigh about 7 pounds in lunar gravity. It carries front and rear stereo cameras, an Nvidia processor and a sun compass, so it can map terrain and drive from waypoint to waypoint without teleoperation, moving steadily instead of stopping for long periods. Its neutron spectrometer will look for hydrogen as a marker of water ice. It is designed to work for one lunar day (up to 14 Earth days) and not to survive the lunar night. Red Whittaker, David Wettergreen and Heather Jones lead the CMU team.
The RI's earlier space and planetary-analogue robots include Iris, a small student-built lunar rover that launched on Astrobotic's lander in January 2024. They also include V-R3x, a three-satellite swarm launched in 2021 to test radio networking and navigation, and Andy 2 (2014) and Red Rover (2012), rover prototypes for the Google Lunar X Prize. Scarab (2007) was a lunar polar rover prototype that adjusts its body posture to climb into and out of craters and to position a coring drill. TRESTLE (2006) coordinated multiple robots for complex assembly. Zoe (2004) was a solar-powered astrobiology rover that searched the Atacama Desert for life and was still making field trips in 2023 and 2024. Hyperion (2001) demonstrated sun-synchronous navigation in the Canadian high Arctic. Skyworker (2001) was an assembly, inspection and maintenance robot for orbital structures, and the Nomad robots (1997, 2000) explored desert analogues and searched Antarctica for meteorites autonomously.
For the directory, the RI is a research institute and the academic home of several US lunar robotics programmes and spinouts, Astrobotic among them.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
MoonRanger
Suitcase-sized autonomous lunar rover with stereo cameras and a NASA Ames neutron spectrometer to hunt water near the south pole; flies on Blue Ghost in 2029.
Iris
Small, boxy student-built lunar rover mounted on Astrobotic's lander and launched in January 2024.
Scarab
2007 lunar polar rover prototype that adjusts body posture to climb into and out of craters and positions a coring drill for soil sampling.
Zoe
Solar-powered astrobiology rover (2004) with specialised sensors that searched the Atacama Desert for life and plans its day around battery levels.
Skyworker
2001 research robot for assembly, inspection and maintenance of orbital structures.
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Contact Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute
WEBSITE
https://www.ri.cmu.eduHEADQUARTERS
United States
Company Facts
Founded
1979
Primary Role
Research Institute
Company Size
-
Primary Region
North America
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
Grant / Non-profit
Funding Total
-
Keywords
- Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute
- MoonRanger
- Iris lunar rover
- Scarab rover
- Zoe rover
- planetary robotics
- autonomous navigation
- lunar south pole
- NASA CLPS
- Astrobotic
- Research Institute
- Autonomous Vehicle/UGV
- Navigation & Positioning
- Aerospace & Space
- Education & Research
- Space Explore
- Research Platform
