Space-Filling Truncated Octahedron Climbing Modular Robots for the Construction of High-Rise Structures on the Lunar Surface

摘要

On the lunar surface, modular robots that can perform multiple tasks through coupling, decoupling, and reconfiguration are expected to play a significant role due to considerations of cost, work efficiency, and fault tolerance. One of the tasks on the lunar surface is the construction of high-rise solar power towers to secure power sources. This study proposes a construction method using modular robots to build high-rise structures on the lunar surface. The shape of both the robots and the structural modules is designed as truncated octahedrons, and four prototypes of these modules have been developed in this study. Additionally, we have previously proposed a method for determining the configuration, position, and posture of modules by discretizing space into truncated octahedron shapes, focusing on their space-filling properties. In this paper, we propose a construction method for building high-rise structures using both the previously prototyped modules and newly propose modules. Significant points of these proposing concept is based on discretizing the workspace using three-dimensional shapes and implements methods of an automated system for the desired task, which can be said that the proposed methods form an efficient and coherent system integration platform on the target missions.