An interstellar robotic probe will need robotic systems that are completely autonomous. Think about it: the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was able to solve the rover Spirit’s problems on Mars by sending it a series of commands and a software patch. Spirit’s computer was crashing whenever it tried to access its data storage, forcing a series of reboots that were running down the rover’s batteries. By deleting a backlog of files that were clogging the system’s flash memory, JPL got the rover back on track.

But Mars is virtually next-door compared to Alpha Centauri. Even the Galileo probe, which experienced a tape recorder malfunction and a reprogramming forced by the failure of its high-gain antenna, could be fixed from Earth because the radio delay was only eighty minutes round-trip. Imagine what will happen with an 8.6 year round-trip delay and you can see why robotic repair systems will have to function on their own.

Of course, not all progress on robot autonomy is related to space exploration. Consider EcoBot II. Chris Melhuish and collaborators at the University of the West of England in Bristol are creating robotic systems that catch flies and extract energy from the chitin in their exoskeletons to produce electric current. This article in New Scientist explains that EcoBot II houses an array of eight microbial fuel cells (MFCs) that break down the sugars, using raw sewage bacteria to facilitate the energy exchange. These robots probably aren’t something you’d want hanging around the house, but they illustrate the larger drive to make robotic systems that are self-contained.

EcoBot II, says the article, “…is part of a drive to make ‘release and forget’ robots that can be sent into dangerous or inhospitable areas to carry out remote industrial or military monitoring of, say, temperature or toxic gas concentrations.” More on Melhuish and the work at the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory can be found here.