NASA's Innovative Moon Rovers Revolutionize Lunar Exploration

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab has developed lightweight Moon rovers as part of the Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE) set, with plans to send a trio of them to the Moon next year. These autonomous robots are capable of determining their own path and maneuvering around hazards, requiring only high-level goals from mission controllers. To prevent overheating, the rovers will undergo 30-minute wake-sleep cycles, cooling off and recharging their batteries. They will also share their health status with each other via mesh radio networking and elect a leader based on fitness for the task at hand. The CADRE robots represent a new era of robotic cooperation and off-planet off-roading.