Screw-driven locomotion into regolith simulants

Abstract

The aim of the Thesis is the creation of the analytical model describing the dynamics of the screw-driven mechanism used for locomotion into regolith. The model is intended for the existing prototype of the device which was created primarily for the application in the planetary exploration field. It is based on the available methods of the modeling of devices for subsurface exploration in agreement with the appropriate laws of soil mechanics. In the beginning the idea of the planetary exploration is introduced with the emphasis on the significance of the subsurface locomotion devices. After that, the different solutions from the literature are described together with mathematical tools used for their modeling. Next, the dynamical model is formulated together with the precise mathematical description of all of its components. In the section that follows the results of model validation are presented using the measurement data obtained with the usage of an existing testbed. In the end an example of model’s application in the optimization algorithm is presented, in order to obtain a screw with the most optimal performance.