Auto-Gopher-II: an autonomous wireline rotary-hammer ultrasonic drill

Mircea Badescu; Hyeong Jae Lee; Stewart Sherrit; Xiaoqi Bao; Yoseph Bar-Cohen; Shannon Jackson; Jacob Chesin; Kris Zacny; Gale L. Paulsen; Bolek Mellerowicz; Daniel Kim

doi:10.1117/12.2260243

4 April 2017 Auto-Gopher-II: an autonomous wireline rotary-hammer ultrasonic drill

Mircea Badescu, Hyeong Jae Lee, Stewart Sherrit, Xiaoqi Bao, Yoseph Bar-Cohen, Shannon Jackson, Jacob Chesin, Kris Zacny, Gale L. Paulsen, Bolek Mellerowicz, Daniel Kim

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10166, Industrial and Commercial Applications of Smart Structures Technologies 2017; 101660K (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2260243
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2017, Portland, Oregon, United States

Abstract

Developing technologies that would enable future NASA exploration missions to penetrate deeper into the subsurface of planetary bodies for sample collection is of great importance. Performing these tasks while using minimal mass/volume systems and with low energy consumption is another set of requirements imposed on such technologies. A deep drill, called Auto-Gopher II, is currently being developed as a joint effort between JPL’s NDEAA laboratory and Honeybee Robotics Corp. The Auto-Gopher II is a wireline rotary-hammer drill that combines formation breaking by hammering using an ultrasonic actuator and cuttings removal by rotating a fluted auger bit. The hammering mechanism is based on the Ultrasonic/Sonic Drill/Corer (USDC) mechanism that has been developed as an adaptable tool for many drilling and coring applications. The USDC uses an intermediate free-flying mass to transform high frequency vibrations of a piezoelectric transducer horn tip into sonic hammering of the drill bit. The USDC concept was used in a previous task to develop an Ultrasonic/Sonic Ice Gopher and then integrated into a rotary hammer device to develop the Auto-Gopher-I. The lessons learned from these developments are being integrated into the development of the Auto- Gopher-II, an autonomous deep wireline drill with integrated cuttings and sample management and drive electronics. Subsystems of the wireline drill are being developed in parallel at JPL and Honeybee Robotics Ltd. This paper presents the development efforts of the piezoelectric actuator, cuttings removal and retention flutes and drive electronics.

Citation Download Citation

Mircea Badescu, Hyeong Jae Lee, Stewart Sherrit, Xiaoqi Bao, Yoseph Bar-Cohen, Shannon Jackson, Jacob Chesin, Kris Zacny, Gale L. Paulsen, Bolek Mellerowicz, and Daniel Kim "Auto-Gopher-II: an autonomous wireline rotary-hammer ultrasonic drill", Proc. SPIE 10166, Industrial and Commercial Applications of Smart Structures Technologies 2017, 101660K (4 April 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2260243

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