Force modeling of the cutting disc in rock sawing for anchoring and sampling in asteroid exploration

摘要

Sampling is one of the most important tasks in planetary exploration. Anchoring is also necessary for long term operations on the weightless surface of objects like asteroids and comets. For anchoring on the extremely hard surface and sampling the rock material, we presented the cutting discs sawing based method in the previous work. In this paper, we model the forces on the cutting discs in rock sawing by force analyzing and experimental testing. The influences of the cutting depth and feeding velocity on the vertical and horizontal force components acting on the disc are studied. The normal and tangential force components and power consumption are also decided for anchoring and sampling robotic system control. The results show that cutting needs a low “weight on bit” (WOB) about 5 N in 200 s quartzite rock material sawing, with maximum power about 25 W. The force models obtained in this paper can be used to predict the force during rock sawing and design the sampling and anchoring robotic systems.