Soil Sampling on an Extreme Terrain Rover: A Pneumatic Device

Abstract

A key problem in rover exploration missions is that many of the scientifically interesting areas to investigate are extremely difficult to access given typical flat-topography rovers. The Axel rover was designed to rappel down steep cliffs using a tether held securely at the top. It is very important that this rover is capable of taking and analyzing samples of soil on Mars. Goals for such a sampling mechanism are to collect a sample of at least 2 grams and store it, and to repeat this. The system developed here is a preliminary system that takes one sample and stores it using a pneumatic device. A pneumatic approach was chosen due to its simplicity, as minimal actuation will be needed to move soil. This design can be easily integrated with a multi-sample system later on. Tests to maximize soil collection were done to choose a design for the system, and this design will be implemented on Axel soon to test its effectiveness. This work was done in conjunction with another SURF student.