Excavation performance of a screw-propelled vehicle

The effectiveness of excavation robots for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) on planetary bodies such as the moon or Mars is contingent upon their ability to generate high traction forces while minimizing the amount of force required to excavate regolith. Also, these excavation robots must be light and use minimal power since they must be launched from Earth. This study explores the performance of CASPER, a Counter-rotating Archimedes Screw-Propelled Excavation Rover that is capable of meeting these requirements and reaching similar levels of performance as other proposed excavation platforms at a much lower total mass. It does so by combining a screw-propelled mobility system with a simple ramp excavation system, which has never been attempted before. In particular, the effect of mobility system geometry and other system parameters on the robot's excavation capability and mobility performance were studied. Additionally, a novel parameter, the excavation transport rate (ETR) is defined to obtain greater insight on how the performance of this robot compares to other proposed architectures on the combined basis of mobility and excavation capabilities. The results indicate that this architecture shows promise as a planetary excavation system because it provides significant excavation capability with low mass and power requirements.