Dante II: Technical Description, Results, and Lessons Learned

TLDR

Dante II is a unique walking robot that combines legged and rappelling mobility, a scanning laser rangefinder, and a multilevel control scheme, offering insights into high‑mobility robotic locomotion and remote exploration. This article details Dante II’s design, support systems, control techniques, and user interfaces, and discusses lessons learned and the need for autonomous systems that know when to seek human assistance. During a five‑day mission in an Alaskan volcano crater, Dante II explored autonomously under supervised control while operators 120 km away teleoperated the robot, and the article describes the robot, support systems, control techniques, and interfaces. Field tests, including the 1994 volcanic deployment, demonstrated Dante II’s fieldworthiness, showing that framewalkers are suitable for rappelling in severe terrain, though tether systems have limitations.

Abstract

Dante II is a unique walking robot that provides important insight into high-mobility robotic locomotion and remote robotic exploration. Dante II’s uniqueness stems from its combined legged and rappelling mobility system, its scanning-laser rangefinder, and its multilevel control scheme. In 1994 Dante II was deployed and successfully tested in a remote Alaskan volcano, as a demonstration of the fieldworthiness of these technologies. For more than five days the robot explored alone in the volcano crater using a combination of supervised autonomous control and teleoperated control. Human operators were located 120 km distant during the mission. This article first describes in detail the robot, support systems, control techniques, and user interfaces. We then describe results from the battery of field tests leading up to and including the volcanic mission. Finally, we put forth important lessons which comprise the legacy of this project. We show that framewalkers are appropriate for rappelling in severe terrain, though tether systems have limitations. We also discuss the importance of future “autonomous” systems to realize when they require human support rather than relying on humans for constant oversight.