A Simple Tele-robotic Lunar Excavator

An excavation tele-robotic system is developed to excavate and collect lunar regolith. The excavator has been developed by the team BRACU ChondroBot consisting students from BRAC University for NASA's 2nd Annual Lunabotics Mining Competition (LMC) 2011. Considering the requirement of NASA and calculating the load, friction and power the mechanical excavator was designed and built. The dimension of the excavator is 1.45m × .74m × 1.48m and the weight is 80 kg. It consists of two excavation arm and one pulley system depositor bucket. Two conveyer belt type wheels are used to drive the robot. Efficient control and communication is always a big challenge for a Tele-robot. In our developed system hardware can be operated both manually and remotely through a web browser by logging in from any computer without direct visual and auditory access to the hardware. A unique control circuit, graphical user interface and communication module for two terminals are also developed for remote access.