The Life On ice: Robotic Antarctic eXplorer or LORAX was an experimental

robotics Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...

project developed by the

Robotics Institute The Robotics Institute (RI) is a division of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. A June 2014 article in ''Robotics Business Review'' magazine calls it "the world's best robo ...

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

, and supported by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

. The intent of the project was to create an autonomous rover to survey the distribution of microbes on Antarctica's ice sheets. It is unknown whether it intentionally shared a name with

The Lorax ''The Lorax'' is a children's literature, children's book written by Dr. Seuss and published in 1971. It chronicles the plight of the Biophysical environment, environment and the Lorax, the main character, who "speaks for the trees" and confront ...

, the environmentalist

Dr. Seuss Theodor Seuss Geisel ( ;"Seuss"
'' robotic Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...

platform with full navigational autonomy and clean, sustainable power systems. This complete isolation would've allowed the robot to operate unattended and avoid any possible contamination of its results. The project aimed for the robot to be able to operate for one month without human intervention. The rover's power systems incorporated a combination of

solar power Solar power, also known as solar electricity, is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Solar panels use the photovoltaic effect to c ...

and

wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

. Several

solar panel A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that produce excited electrons when exposed to light. These electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct ...

s were mounted on the shell of the rover. It also had a deployable

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

for generating further power. A working model of the LORAX rover called ''

Nomad Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...

'' was tested in 2005Researchers Deploy Robot on Frozen Lake In Preparation for Antarctic Expedition
/ref> on the frozen

Mascoma Lake Mascoma Lake is a lake in western New Hampshire, United States. Most of the lake is within the town of Enfield, New Hampshire, Enfield, while a small portion is within the city of Lebanon, New Hampshire, Lebanon, where it drains into the Mascoma ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

. The rover completed a ten kilometer test run, traversed ice obstacles and conducted a successful test of its

. The rover, independent of any human guidance, traveled over fourteen kilometers in all on the frozen lake and returned to its starting point. The test also yielded further calibrations to many of the rover's systems.

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External links

Project Page at the Robotics Institute

Project page featuring test results, images and movies
Carnegie Mellon Vehicles and Rovers Planetary rovers Robots of the United States 2005 robots Four-wheeled robots {{US-spacecraft-stub

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