Engineering Intern and Tyrobot Developer, Astrobotic Technology Inc.
Summer 2013
Planetary skylights are gateways to underground voids, caves, and lava tubes. However, they have never been explored due to difficulty of access with current technologies. It is hypothesized that there exists an extensive network of interconnected caves beneath the lunar surface. A cave network might shelter humans against harsh moon elements and minimize the impacts of long lunar nights. Subsurface caverns may be the best place on Mars to find life. The research problem was to conceive, develop, and test a compact, reliable robotic system for accessing and exploring these caves, modeling their physical parameters, and communicating those findings to scientists on Earth. Tyrobot, developed Summer 2013, is a robotic pit descender system that traverses cables and lowers exploration devices into pits and caves. Performance was validated in local Pennsylvania coal mines.
For a more technical overview of the project, please check out this poster, which I presented at the 2014 Meeting of the Minds.
My major contributions and responsibilities as lead mechanical engineer of the Tyrobot project are as follows:
- Defined system requirements, hypothesized lunar mission, and analyzed use cases
- Designed system in Solidworks and used FEA simulations to appropriately minimize mass
- Led preliminary and conceptual design reviews, presenting to internal and external engineers
- Worked with external machine shops to fabricate parts
- Assembled system and validated performance in Astrobotic High Bay
- Generated test plan and organized several field tests in Pennsylvania coal mines
- Deployed laser range finder, colored camera, and IMU sensor package to generate 3D terrain maps
