月面探査用蠕動運動型掘削ロボットにおける分散駆動掘削機構に対応した推進機構の開発

抄録

In order to excavate lunar underground, we have developed a lunar earthworm-type excavation robot “LEAVO”. The target missions of LEAVO are 1) excavate boreholes for environmental sensors and 2) collect some samples in particular layer. LEAVO has succeeded in 938 mm vertical excavation, and we confirmed its usefulness in the target mission 1). In addition, in order to expand the excavation range to achieve mission 2), a distributed driving system was developed as a new drive system for bending and horizontal excavation, and excavation performance was confirmed through excavation experiments. In this study, we design and develop a propulsion unit for an excavation robot in combination with a distributed driving system.