Development of the Soil Sampler for the Small Moving Robot

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the soil sampler developed for robotization of sample collection for soil diagnosis. Our goal is to develop the sampler which can be mounted on a small robot running in paddy field (about 300 [mm] in length and width). Sampler is able to collect 10 [g] of soil with depth of 5 [cm] at nine or more sampling points. In order to achieve this specifications, we made a prototype of sampler which connect and rotate containers to take and store soil in chains. As a result of the test, it was confirmed that it is possible to collect soil by the robot equipped with this mechanism.