This study evaluated the usability and effectiveness of robotic platforms working together with foresters in the wild on forest inventory tasks using LiDAR scanning. Emphasis was on the Universal Access principle, ensuring that robotic solutions are not only effective but also environmentally responsible and accessible for diverse users. Three robotic platforms were tested: Boston Dynamics Spot, AgileX Scout, and Bunker Mini. Spot's quadrupedal locomotion struggled in dense undergrowth, leading to frequent mobility failures and a System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 78 +/- 10. Its short, battery life and complex recovery processes further limited its suitability for forest operations without substantial modifications. In contrast, the wheeled AgileX Scout and tracked Bunker Mini demonstrated superior usability, each achieving a high SUS score of 88 +/- 5. However, environmental impact varied: Scout's wheeled design caused minimal disturbance, whereas Bunker Mini's tracks occasionally damaged young vegetation, highlighting the importance of gentle interaction with natural ecosystems in robotic forestry. All platforms enhanced worker safety, reduced physical effort, and improved LiDAR workflows by eliminating the need for human presence during scans. Additionally, the study engaged forest engineering students, equipping them with hands-on experience in emerging robotic technologies and fostering discussions on their responsible integration into forestry practices. This study lays a crucial foundation for the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into forest robotics, enabling future advancements in autonomous perception, decision-making, and adaptive navigation. By systematically evaluating robotic platforms in real-world forest environments, this research provides valuable empirical data that will inform AI-driven enhancements, such as machine learning-based terrain adaptation, intelligent path planning, and autonomous fault recovery. Furthermore, the study holds high value for the international research community, serving as a benchmark for future developments in forestry robotics and AI applications. Moving forward, future research will build on these findings to explore adaptive remote operation, AI-powered terrain-aware navigation, and sustainable deployment strategies, ensuring that robotic solutions enhance both operational efficiency and ecological responsibility in forest management worldwide.

Soft wet grounds such as mud, sand, or forest soils, are difficult to navigate because it is hard to predict the response of the yielding ground and energy lost in deformation. In this article, we address the control of quadruped robots' static gait in deep mud. We present and compare six controller versions with increasing complexity that use a combination of a creeping gait, a foot-substrate interaction detection, a model-based center of mass positioning, and a leg speed monitoring, along with their experimental validation in a tank filled with mud, and demonstrations in natural environments. We implement and test the controllers on a Go1 quadruped robot and also compare the performance to the commercially available dynamic gait controller of Go1. While the commercially available controller was only sporadically able to traverse in 12 cm deep mud with a 0.35 water/solid matter ratio for a short time, all proposed controllers successfully traversed the test ground while using up to 4.42 times less energy. The results of this article can be used to deploy quadruped robots on soft wet grounds, so far inaccessible to legged robots.

The Lunarminer framework explores the use of biomimetic swarm robotics, inspired by the division of labor in leafcutter ants and the synchronized flashing of fireflies, to enhance lunar water ice extraction. Simulations of water ice extraction within Shackleton Crater showed that the framework may improve task allocation, by reducing the extraction time by up to 40% and energy consumption by 31% in scenarios with high ore block quantities. This system, capable of producing up to 181 L of water per day from excavated regolith with a conversion efficiency of 0.8, may allow for supporting up to eighteen crew members. It has demonstrated robust fault tolerance and sustained operational efficiency, even for a 20% robot failure rate. The framework may help to address key challenges in lunar resource extraction, particularly in the permanently shadowed regions. To refine the proposed strategies, it is recommended that further studies be conducted on their large-scale applications in space mining operations at the Extraterrestrial Environmental Simulation (EXTERRES) laboratory at the University of Adelaide.

The success of weed control is critical for our food security. Non-chemical weed control is a promising technique in sustainable agriculture to ensure the food security. In this review, multiple directed energy weed control methods are reviewed with a specific focus on laser and optical radiation weed control. The mechanisms of the weed control in terms of adverse ablation, radiation thermal effects, and molecular-level damages are systematically reviewed. In particular, the underlying mathematical models determining the dose and response relationship of the weed control are also analyzed for a rigorous study of the physical law of the control process. Challenges of applying the techniques into practice are also illustrated to guide practical weed control applications.

Compliant materials are indispensable for many emerging soft robotics applications. Hence, concerns regarding sustainability and end-of-life options for these materials are growing, given that they are predominantly petroleum-based and non-recyclable. Despite efforts to explore alternative bio-derived soft materials like gelatin, they frequently fall short in delivering the mechanical performance required for soft actuating systems. To address this issue, we reinforced a compliant and transparent gelatin-glycerol matrix with structure-retained delignified wood, resulting in a flexible and entirely biobased composite (DW-flex). This DW-flex composite exhibits highly anisotropic mechanical behavior, possessing higher strength and stiffness in the fiber direction and high deformability perpendicular to it. Implementing a distinct anisotropy in otherwise isotropic soft materials unlocks new possibilities for more complex movement patterns. To demonstrate the capability and potential of DW-flex, we built and modeled a fin ray-inspired gripper finger, which deforms based on a twist-bending-coupled motion that is tailorable by adjusting the fiber direction. Moreover, we designed a demonstrator for a proof-of-concept suitable for gripping a soft object with a complex shape, i.e., a strawberry. We show that this composite is entirely biodegradable in soil, enabling more sustainable approaches for soft actuators in robotics applications.

The success of a multi-kilometre drive by a solar-powered rover at the lunar south pole depends upon careful planning in space and time due to highly dynamic solar illumination conditions. An additional challenge is that the rover may be subject to random faults that can temporarily delay long-range traverses. The majority of existing global spatiotemporal planners assume a deterministic rover-environment model and do not account for random faults. In this paper, we consider a random fault profile with a known, average spatial fault rate. We introduce a methodology to compute recovery policies that maximize the probability of survival of a solar-powered rover from different start states. A recovery policy defines a set of recourse actions to reach a safe location with sufficient battery energy remaining, given the local solar illumination conditions. We solve a stochastic reach-avoid problem using dynamic programming to find an optimal recovery policy. Our focus, in part, is on the implications of state space discretization, which is required in practical implementations. We propose a modified dynamic programming algorithm that conservatively accounts for approximation errors. To demonstrate the benefits of our approach, we compare against existing methods in scenarios where a solar-powered rover seeks to safely exit from permanently shadowed regions in the Cabeus area at the lunar south pole. We also highlight the relevance of our methodology for mission formulation and trade safety analysis by comparing different rover mobility models in simulated recovery drives from the LCROSS impact region.

Power and communications are required for successful operations in the permanently shaded regions (PSRs) located at the lunar poles. However, due to the location of PSRs, direct solar power from the Sun and line of sight communications to Earth are limited. NASA solicited solutions from universities within the United States with the Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge. The Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab (PSTDL) at Michigan Technological University (MTU) developed the Tethered-permanently shadowed Region EXplorer (T-REX) to address this problem. A conventional round tether in series with a superconducting tape tether connects to a lander at a crater rim to provide power and communications to T-REX during its descent into a PSR. This mission is enabled by the passive cooling of hardware within the naturally occurring cold environment of a PSR. T-REX was developed by using an iterative approach with testing conducted from component to system-level. System validation included testing within a sloped lunar regolith simulant chamber and component-wise testing under cryogenic temperatures. T-REX has been shown to be capable of traversing down 45 degrees slopes and obstacles in a lunar highland terrain simulant during system mobility testing. The on-board tether deployment system was able to unspool a superconducting tether (SCT) while maintaining controlled rates of under 5 N of tension. A data transfer rate of 94 Mbps via very-high-speed Digital Subscriber Line-2 and 132.2 W of DC power transfer over the SCT when cooled to 77 K was validated through testing. Thermal analyses on the system analytically validated the performance of T-REX during the transition between shaded and illuminated regions. The T-REX rover technology was raised to Technology Readiness Level 5 over 1.5 years of research. The SCTs are high-efficiency, low mass means of providing power and data in extreme lunar environments.

Future sustained human presence on the Moon will require us to make use of lunar resources. This in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) process will require suitable feedstock (i.e., lunar regolith) that has been both acquired and prepared (or beneficiated) to set standards. Acquisition of pre-processed regolith, is an often overlooked engineering challenge in the demanding and low-gravity environment of the lunar surface. Currently, regolith excavation and size separation are often developed independently of each other. Here, we present the Lunar Excavation and Size Separation System (LES3), which is an engineered one-system solution to combine the acquisition of lunar regolith as well as separate it into two distinct size fractions, and therefore, can assist to define the quality of the feedstock material for ISRU processes. Intended for use with a lightweight (40-60 kg) lunar rover (LUnar Volatiles Mobile Instrumentation-X; LUVMI-X) currently under development, the mechanism utilises vibrations to reduce excavation forces and facilitate size separation. Low excavation forces are crucial for lunar excavators to be deployable on lightweight robotic platforms as limited traction forces are available. The rationale behind the mechanism is explained, its capabilities in the support of science and ISRU are showcased, and results from several laboratory test campaigns, including tests of gravitational dry sieving of different regolith simulants, are presented. The LES3 can excavate up to 100 g in a single charge while maintaining excavation forces of less than 8 N and having a mass of less than 2 kg. Finally, areas of improvement for a second iteration of the design are presented and explained. The LES3 proof of concept shows that combining of regolith excavation and size-separation in a single mechanism is feasible.

Extracting local resources from excavated lunar regolith will help support a sustainable presence on the Moon. For example, water ice beneath the lunar permanently shadowed region can be processed into liquid oxygen/hydrogen propellant. The availability of space acquired propellant could dramatically decrease the cost of Earth to space transportation. To address this need, this work proposes an autonomously controlled robot with trilateration-based localization for optimized excavation of lunar regolith. A proof-of-concept design for an autonomous lunar mining rover is presented. The autonomous rover is capable of traveling to known dig sites, excavating lunar regolith/water ice simulant, and transporting the lunar regolith/water ice simulant back to a collection sieve, without the need for user input. The work included phases for requirements and planning, conceptual design, detailed design, and testing for performance validation. Contributions of the proposed design include an autonomously controlled rover for excavation of lunar regolith, with design optimization to maximize the amount of successfully deposited material. The proposed design offers an optimal balance between opposing cost functions and design constraints for reducing the size and weight of the rover, while maximizing the operational performance of the rover for mining, transit, and depositing.

Results are reported from a new lunar base study with a concise architectural program: build and operate a human-tended base that produces enough oxygen and hydrogen from lunar polar ice In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) for four flights per year of a reusable lander shuttling between the Lunar Gateway and the base. The study examines for the modern era issues first developed and reconciled by the Robotic Lunar Surface Operations (RLSO) study published in 1990 and resurrected at the 69th IAC in Bremen. The new study updates key assumptions for 1) resources - lunar polar ice instead of ilmenite; 2) solar power - polar lighting conditions instead of the 28-day equatorial lunation cycle; 3) transportation - use of multiple flight systems now in development and planning; 4) base site planning - a range of options near, straddling, and inside permanently shadowed regions; 5) ISRU scenarios - for harvesting ice and for constructing radiation shielding from regolith. As did the original study, RLSO2 combines US experts in mission design, space architecture, robotic surface operations, autonomy, ISRU, operations analysis, and human space mission and lunar surface experience. Unlike the original study, the new study uses contemporary tools: CAD engineering of purpose-design base elements, and integrated performance captured in a numerical operations model. This allows rapid iteration to converge system sizing, and builds a legacy analysis tool that can assess the performance benefits and impacts of any proposed system element in the context of the overall base. The paper presents an overview of the ground rules, assumptions, methodology, operations model, element designs, base site plan, and quantitative findings. These findings include the performance of various regolith and ice resource utilization schemes as a function of base location and lunar surface parameters. The paper closes with short lists of the highest priority experiments and demonstrations needed on the lunar surface to retire key planning unknowns.