Exploring Mount Erebus by walking robot

Dante is a tethered walking robot capable of climbing steep slopes. In 1992 it was created at Carnegie Mellon University and deployed in Antarctica to explore an active volcano, Mount Erebus. The Dante project's robot science objectives were to demonstrate a real exploration mission, rough terrain locomotion, environmental survival, and self-sustained operation in the harsh Antarctic climate. The volcano science objective was to study the unique convecting magma lake inside Mount Erebus' inner crater. The expedition demonstrated the advancing state-of-art in mobile robotics and the future potential of robotic explorers. This paper details our objectives, describes the Dante robot, overviews what happened on the expedition and discusses what did and didn't work.