Thanga's Robotic Prototype Highlighted In ConstructConnect

In a recent interview with Daily Commercial News, a publication by ConstructConnect, AME assistant professor Jekan Thanga discussed how he's taking inspiration from nature in order to best design a robot for NASA's lunar or Mars missions. 

Thanga is researching construction robots that can build infrastructure on other worlds. But large, complex, “gold-plated” robots are costly to develop and transport into space, and a single malfunction can be devastating. In turn, Thanga is looking to nature to deliver a more cost-effective swarm of smaller and less complex robots that take their cues from colonies of ants, bees and termites working together to build complex structures.

“These robots, like the insects that inspire them, are individually simple and disposable, have limited capabilities and perhaps a limited lifespan,” Thanga said. “But together, like the science-fiction Transformers, their efforts are very robust.”