Resource ingesting soft robotic skins for in situ regolith sampling

This proposal aims to create a lightweight and compact robot alternative to NASA's current rigid-body robots for in situ material collection and retrieval for lunar and Martian expeditions. I propose to build an In Situ Resource Ingesting (ISRI) soft robot, which will simultaneously collect material that can be used for sample studying or resource gathering and change its overall shape to traverse varying terrain. To accomplish this, I will combine recent advances in soft robotic skins and razor-clam-inspired burrowing techniques. Soft robotic skins are two-dimensional elastic sheets with embedded pneumatic actuators and sensors, which can achieve tasks like locomotion, manipulation, and shape-change when attached to the surface of a host three-dimensional (3D) soft object. Razor-clam-inspired soft robots have shown success in burrowing, by mimicking the morphology and burrowing gait of razor clams. The proposed design features a robotic skin inclusive of numerous soft razor-clam-inspired burrowing components around the perimeter, yielding a soft, lightweight, and compact robot, resulting in an overall low transport cost. The burrowing components will advance the edges of the robotic skin into the ground, the robotic skin will close itself around the in situ material to form into a ball, then the robot will locomote by rolling, transporting the material to a target site. The project phases are as follows: create a soft razor-clam-inspired burrowing component, implement burrowing components onto a robotic skin, create a control policy to optimize burrowing tailored to the in situ material properties, and test the ISRI robot in environments with varying granular properties, representative of lunar and Martian regolith. The ISRI robot, compared to traditional rigid-body sample collectors, will revolutionize extraterrestrial burrowing with its lower transport cost, resulting from the flatness and lightness of the system, and its ability to morph in shape for locomotion, resulting from its compliance.

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