GIVE a robot a sense of itself and it should be able to move across distant planets more speedily than today鈥檚 snail-paced rovers.
NASA鈥檚 Spirit and Opportunity, for example, are still stuck in the slow lane as they trundle round Mars. Every 10 seconds of motion has to be followed by 20 seconds at rest to scan the area ahead for hazards.
Now Josh Bongard of the University of Vermont, Burlington, has come up with a strategy for a speedier rover. Building on his idea of a rover that constructs a software model of its own body he has added a 3D model of its surroundings, which allows it to 鈥渋magine鈥� itself moving through the terrain and so pick the safest route. Instead of scanning obstacles in detail, it uses data from just two tilt sensors to model the terrain, which is quicker to process.
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