Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Manned mission to Mars will be inevitable due to limitations of the robotic missions. A design is proposed wherein a colony of the Mars suit repair nanorobots will be present above the gas layer (usually oxygen at an average pressure of 560 Kpa) and beneath the layer of the suit exposed to the external environment. Since the pressure on the martian surface is very low (0.7 Kpa on an average), when a region of the suit is damaged, the nanorobots will immediately rush to that region due to the pressure difference. Nanorobots quickly seal breaches by interlocking with one another in successive waves until the damage is sealed. The propulsion of the nanorobots to the region of damage and the interlocking mechanism will follow a set of behavioral rules based on a behavioral strategy to enable a coordinated action so that the breach is sealed in a fast and efficient manner.

Keywords: Mars manned mission, suit repair, Flagellar motors, swarm intelligence, Van der waals interactions.