A soil flowing characteristics monitoring method in planetary drilling and coring verification experiments

Some type of piercing into the subsurface formation is required in future planetary explorations to enhance the understanding of early stars' geological evolution and the origin of life. Compared with other technical methods, drilling & coring, only utilizing the compound locomotion of rotation and penetration, can sample the subsurface soil relatively efficient and convenient. However, given the uncertain mechanical properties of planetary soil, drilling state signals should be monitored online to improve the robustness of drilling system and avoid potential drilling faults. Since the flowing characteristics of interacted soil, such as removal volume, coring height, removal velocity and accumulation angle, directly reveal the drilling conditions, they are enhancing resources to comprehend the sampling phenomenon and can be used to help control the drill tool. This paper proposed a novel soil flowing characteristics (SFC) monitoring method by applying an industrial camera to record the flowing characteristics of removed cuttings and by utilizing an ultrasonic sensor into the hollow auger to monitor the sampled core. Experiments in one typical lunar regolith simulant indicate that the monitored SFC accurately reflects the interaction between the drill tool and soil.