UCLA Unveils SPLITTER, a Tethered Jumping Robot for Space Exploration

A new robotic system capable of discovering planets through tethard jumping has been developed by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) at Robotics and Mechanism Laboratory (Romela). Robot, named Space and Planetary Limbed Intelligent Teether Technology Exploration Robot, is designed as a modular, multi-robot system, made up of two quadruple robots connected by a tether. The system presented in the IEEE Aeroconf Conference (Aeroconf) 2025 is designed to navigate the lower-gurutshan atmosphere such as the Moon and Asteroids. Reports indicate that the robotic system can jump gradually when collecting scientific data, providing the option of traditional planet rovers and drones.

Design and capabilities of splitter

According to a study published on the Arxiv Preprint server, the splitter consists of two hemie-splitter robots associated with a tether, which create a dumbbell-like structure. The tithiter enables mobility and stability during mid-air travel, which eliminates the requirement of additional approach control mechanisms such as gas thrusters or reaction wheels. The system is designed to dynamically replace its inertia by adjusting the position of the organ and the length of the ther, which ensures stability during the flight. The development of the splitter was inspired by the boundaries of traditional planet Rovers, often slow and cumbersome, and impracticality of drones due to the absence of atmospheric conditions on the celestial body such as the moon and asteroid.

Tantra

Reports suggest that the splitter incorporates an inertial morning mechanism based on a model predictive controller (MPC) to regulate its orientation during mid-air movements. This concept is based on the tennis racket theorem, which is also known as the Dzhanibekov effect, which explains how the asymmetric inertia items pass through a spontaneous rotational flip. The study’s lead writer Yusuke Tanaka told Tech Explore that technology allows aggressive stabilization of the middle-Hawa flight of the robot through controlled inertia adjustment. It has been suggested that this method significantly increases the efficiency of the discovery of planets by ensuring stability without relying on the external force mechanism.

Possible application and future research

The research team has indicated that the splitter can be deployed as a herd of robots in planetary discovery missions, making the broad and unnecessary area efficiently discovered. The theri mechanism may also enable one unit to detect crater or caves, while the other is anchor, providing support. Dennis Hong, director of Romela and head of the project, told Tech XPlore that ongoing research is focusing on improving hardware, including new actuators and sensing mechanisms. Future studies are expected that they are expecting to further validate the inertia monfing mechanisms through high-loyal simulation, with a long-term target of increasing the abilities of the splitter for real-world space applications.