QUT has received $1.2 million in new ARC funding and a green light to build Australia’s largest covered outdoor facility for testing equipment, robotics and materials processing techniques in realistic Moon, Mars and asteroid conditions.
The 20 x 10 m lunar testbed will be capable of simulating different planetary environments to support robotics, sensing and other research applied to space. The lunar testbed will be the first of its kind in Australia and will provide unique capabilities within QUT’s new $5 million space technology precinct to be opened in 2022 at the Kelvin Grove campus.
Leading development, PSE researcher Associate Professor Thierry Peynot from the QUT Centre for Robotics said autonomous rover navigation, materials instrumentation, simple construction and mining activities were among immediate applications.
Read more here.