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Review on Bioinspired Planetary Regolith-Burrowing Robots

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A Correction to this article was published on 08 December 2021

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Abstract

Penetrating planetary regolith is extremely important to explore the secrets inside extraterrestrial celestial bodies. Applying the concept and method of bionics to endow planetary regolith-burrowing robots (PRBRs) with elegant and flexible mobility as natural creatures is gradually becoming a research hotspot in the field of planetary robotics. Compared with traditional penetrating methods, such as drilling and excavation, bioinspired burrowing methods are still seldom studied. This work presents a detailed review of the progress and perspective of bioinspired PRBRs. According to the burrowing mechanisms and strategies of creatures, the current bioinspired PRBRs are divided into seven categories, namely wriggling, undulating, dual-anchoring, grabbing-pushing, reciprocating, granular fluidizing methods inspired by animals, and root growth method inspired by plants. The general characteristics of these robots are summarized in-depth, and the advantages and disadvantages are compared. Then, the key technologies of determining the functionalities and performance of bioinspired PRBRs are comprehensively analyzed, including bioinspired mechanism design, motion control, robot-regolith interaction, and terrestrial validation. Finally, the development trend of bioinspired PRBRs is presented, including new mechanisms and materials, autonomous burrowing control, and intelligent perception and communication.

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Change history

  • 03 December 2021

    The original online version of this article was revised: The original article was published with an affiliation sequence error introduced during typesetting.

  • 08 December 2021

    A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-021-00867-y

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Acknowledgements

This work is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project for Young Scientists: Grant No. 51905105, Key Project: Grant No. 91748201, and Regular Project: Grant No. 51775011), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Regular Project: Grant No. 2020A1515011262), the State Key Laboratory of Robotics and Systems (HIT) (Grant No. SKLRS-2020-KF12), and the Science and Technology Plan Project of Guangzhou (Grant No. 202102020364).

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  1. School of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

    Hongyu Wei, Yinliang Zhang, Tao Zhang & Yisheng Guan

  2. Department of Physical Intelligence, Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany

    Tao Zhang

  3. School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Beihang University, Beijing, China

    Tao Zhang, Kun Xu & Xilun Ding

  4. Beijing Spacecrafts, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing, China

    Yong Pang

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Wei, H., Zhang, Y., Zhang, T. et al. Review on Bioinspired Planetary Regolith-Burrowing Robots. Space Sci Rev 217, 87 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-021-00863-2

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