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Publication

CESAR: A lunar crater exploration and sample return robot

Jakob Schwendner; Felix Grimminger; Sebastian Bartsch; Thilo Kaupisch; Mehmed Yüksel; Andreas Bresser; Joel Bessekon; Alexander Dieterle; Steffen Schmidt; Michael Seydel; Frank Kirchner
In: Intelligent Robots and Systems. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS-09), October 10-15, St. Louis, MO, USA, Pages 3355-3360, ISBN 978-1-4244-3803-7, 10/2009.

Abstract

Suspicion of water ice deposits in the lunar south-polar region have sparked new interest into the earth's smaller companion, and robotic crater sample return missions are being considered by a number of space agencies. The difficult terrain with an inclination of over 30°, eternal darkness and temperatures of less than -173°C make this a difficult task. In this paper we present a novel, bio-inspired light-weight system design, which demonstrates a possible approach for such a mission. The robot managed to come first in the Lunar Robotic Challenge (LRC), organised by the European Space Agency (ESA) in October 2008. Using a remote operated robot, we demonstrated to climb into and out of a lunar-like crater with inclination of more than 35° on loose substrate, and performed the collection and delivery of a 100g soil sample without the aid of external illumination.