Fast, Cheap and Out of Control: a Robot Invasion of the Solar System

TLDR

Complex missions require years of planning and high cost, making failures catastrophic, so the field has traditionally relied on better planning, redundancy, thorough testing, and high‑quality components. The authors propose using large numbers of mass‑produced, small (1–2 kg) autonomous robots for cheap, fast missions. They draw on experience building legged and wheeled ground robots to design missions that deploy many inexpensive, lightweight autonomous units. The authors claim that deploying many inexpensive autonomous robots can dramatically shorten development time, reduce launch mass, increase reliability over ground‑controlled units, and shift the reliability trade‑off, potentially enabling planetary invasion by millions of tiny robots within a few years at modest cost.

Abstract

Complex systems and complex missions take years of planning and force launches to become incredibly expensive. The longer the planning and the more expensive the mission, the more catastrophic if it fails. The solution has always been to plan better, add redundancy, test thoroughly and use high quality components. Based on our experience in building ground based mobile robots (legged and wheeled) we argue here for cheap, fast missions using large numbers of mass produced simple autonomous robots that are small by today's standards (1 to 2 Kg). We argue that the time between mission conception and implementation can be radically reduced, that launch mass can be slashed, that totally autonomous robots can be more reliable than ground controlled robots, and that large numbers of robots can change the tradeoff between reliability of individual components and overall mission success. Lastly, we suggest that within a few years it will be possible at modest cost to invade a planet with millions of tiny robots.