Subsurface Explorer Robot with Peristaltic Crawling Mechanism

In recent years, unmanned planetary explorations have received a lot of attention in the world. Direct exploration missions to land softly and traverse on the surface of the moon or other planets have been studied and planned in the world. Japan has earnestly studied lunar lander-rover missions. In these missions, it is required to conduct in-situ analysis of geological samples and deploy devices for measurement and observation. Recently deep drillers or penetrating systems have been required to obtain deep data for subsurface exploration. In lunar or planetary missions, it is needed to excavate the regolith layer, which covers the lunar surface, in depth of several meters. This paper, describes lunar or planetary mission scenarios and scientific requirements. A detailed surface and subsurface exploration by a mobile explorer is presented. Then this paper proposes a worm-typed drilling robot which is maneuverable in regolith by peristaltic crawling and the developed earth auger. A new mechanism to move forward in the soil is described. A propulsion unit using dual pantographs with a large area of an expansion plate is developed. The drilling function is studied by analyses and some experiments. The experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed robot.