2022 Extreme Mobility Challenge Finalists

Announcing the 2022 BIG Idea Challenge Awardees!

The 2022 BIG Idea Challenge provides undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to design, develop, and demonstrate robotic systems with alternative rover locomotion modalities for use in off-world extreme lunar terrain applications. A panel of NASA and industry judges selected seven innovative ideas from the academic community for a wide range of alternative rover locomotion modalities to either enhance or replace traditional wheeled mobility systems that can expand our access to extreme terrain on the Moon and (later) on Mars.

Awardees for the 2022 BIG Idea Challenge were selected on February 24th, 2022.

View the 2022 Awardees' Summaries & Videos Read the Story at NASA.gov

2022 BIG Idea Challenge Awardees:

Arizona State University
“CHARLOTTE - Crater Hydrogen And Regolith Laboratory for Observation on Technical Terrain Environments”
Faculty Advisors: Dr. James Bell, Dr. James Rice, Prof. Tyler Smith
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California Institute of Technology
“Lunar Architecture for Tree Traversal In-service-of Cabled Exploration (LATTICE)”
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Soon-Jo Chung, Dr. Issa Nesnas, Dr. Charles Elachi, Dr. Jason Kastner, Dr. Steve Wall, Dr. Michael Mello, Dr. Paul Dimotakis
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Florida State University (FAMU-FSU College of Engineering)
“Extreme Terrain Quadruped (ET-Quad)”
Faculty Advisors: Dr. Jonathan Clark, Dr. Christian Hubicki, Dr. Camilo Ordonez, Dr. Shayne McConomy, Dr. Juan Ordonez
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Boston Dynamics, MassRobotics, and Robots5
“Walking Oligomeric Robotic Mobility System (WORMS)”
Faculty Advisors: Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman, Dr. David Trumper, Dr. Olivier de Weck
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Northeastern University
“COBRA: Crater Observing Bio-inspired Rolling Articulator”
Faculty Advisors: Dr. Alireza Ramezani
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University of Connecticut
“Morphing Tank-to-Leg Modality for Exploratory Lunar Vehicles”
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Fiona Leek, Dr. Ramesh Malla
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University of Maryland
“TRAVELS: Terrapin Rover Allows Versatile Exploration of the Lunar Surface”
Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Akin
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