This Autumn the team from Poznan University of Technology had an amazing opportunity to test the locomotion capabilities of our MAB Robotics Silver Badger in challenging conditions. Thanks to the group of geologists from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, led by prof. Witold Szczuciński, we were able to explore one of the largest ice caves in Poland — Ice Cave in Ciemniak, sitting 1704 meters above sea level in the Tatra mountains.
So, we put our robot in the backpack…
and went on a very nice hike…
To reach the cave, we had to leave the beaten track
Finally, we reached the cave!
Here, the most exciting part of the expedition has started. While the geologists were exploring the lower parts of the cave, our attention was drawn to the ice field in the upper part. The cave was offering truly unique conditions for real-world robot testing, so we unpacked our Silver Badger and let it explore on its own.
Our quadruped, with our custom motion policy (thanks, Nico, for a great training pipeline), was challenged by naturally uneven and slippery terrain…
.. but it has shown a remarkable robustness to these adversarial conditions
This was our first reconnaissance mission, we took away valuable lessons and are excited to keep improving our robot for the next challenges ahead!