Design and analysis of a bionic adhesion coring sampler for space unstructured surface

Abstract

The better application of robot technology in space unstructured scenes has become an important research topic. How to adapt to limited workspace and maintain high reliability sampling activities on unstructured surfaces with unknown geometric information and physical features poses high requirements for the implementation of automated sampling missions for extraterrestrial celestial bodies (ECBs). This work introduces a biomimetic adhesion sampler PBAS. It expects to achieve multisite core sampling activities on the unstructured surface of ECBs under astronaut assistance or unmanned automatic operation. Different from previous sampler, the system adopts novel modular structure design and has made improvements to the bionic adhesion mechanism, percussive and drilling mechanism, power transmission and sensing mechanism, and control mechanism. PBAS can firmly adhere to unstructured surfaces and efficiently obtain complete coring samples through penetration and drilling activities. It is compact and lightweight and has high portability, good reusability, excellent efficiency, as well as better performance in automatic sampling operations. Finally, to verify the effectiveness and reliability of the PBAS, a testing apparatus was designed. Relevant tests were conducted outdoors and in the laboratory. The experimental results indicate that PBAS can successfully adhere to surfaces with different characteristics and obtain coring samples with a length exceeding 50 mm.