Cole Dunning is a Senior Mechanical Engineering student working in the Autonomous Flight and Aquatic Systems Laboratory (AFASL) under Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian. Cole's research focuses on the future of Mars exploration through biomimetics. 

The Spider Rolling Robot team has taken inspiration from the golden wheel spider's biomechanics, which rolls downhill on its legs to escape predators. Following suit, the robot moves by rotating on its legs, which will eventually be fully retractable into the sphere and capable of jumping over obstacles. Cole describes the design’s mission as “ The goal of the project is to build a hypermobile rover allowing the martian surface to be explored more than ever before. " The images below show the likeness of the current prototype to its arachnid inspiration!

Figure 1: A golden wheel spider, the conceptual rover model, and the current prototype. 

The team has published a paper titled "Design and Manufacturing of a Bioinspired Spider Rolling Robot for Mars Exploration" for the 2021 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Conference, describing the overall design and prototype performance in depth. Cole urges those interested in learning more about the project to read the paper or reach out to the AFASL lab!

Link to the paper:

https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2021-0958