小型ロボット搭載転圧ローラのけん引負荷抑制制御の構築と実験的検証

抄録

Constructing lunar infrastructures including landing pad and habitable base is essential for enhancing lunar exploration and utilization in the future. The lunar surface regolith, fine-grained loose soil, needs to be compacted and consolidated enough for securely constructing the infrastructures. In this paper, we present a traction control of compaction roller towed by a small mobile robot. The control method aims to minimize the relative drawbar pull between the small mobile robot and the compaction roller. We also manufactured two different shapes of compaction rollers and verified the relationship between the roller shape and control performance. The experimental results show that the proposed traction control effectively minimizes the relative drawbar pull for the spiral-shaped roller while it becomes unstable for the cylindrical-shaped roller because of the roller excites soil bulldozing or excavation during its rolling.