Designing ReachBot: System Design Process with a Case Study of a Martian Lava Tube Mission

TL;DR

This paper presents a systematic design process for ReachBot, a novel robot using deployable booms, optimized for challenging environments like Martian lava tubes, through trade studies considering terrain and mission specifics.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive design methodology that integrates terrain and mission parameters to optimize ReachBot's architecture for specific extraterrestrial exploration tasks.

Findings

Optimized ReachBot design for Martian lava tube mission.

Analysis of boom parameters affecting stability and manipulability.

Demonstration of design process applicability to space exploration.

Abstract

In this paper we present a trade study-based method to optimize the architecture of ReachBot, a new robotic concept that uses deployable booms as prismatic joints for mobility in environments with adverse gravity conditions and challenging terrain. Specifically, we introduce a design process wherein we analyze the compatibility of ReachBot's design with its mission. We incorporate terrain parameters and mission requirements to produce a final design optimized for mission-specific objectives. ReachBot's design parameters include (1) number of booms, (2) positions and orientations of the booms on ReachBot's chassis, (3) boom maximum extension, (4) boom cross-sectional geometry, and (5) number of active/passive degrees-of-freedom at each joint. Using first-order approximations, we analyze the relationships between these parameters and various performance metrics including stability, manipulability, and mechanical interference. We apply our method to a mission where ReachBot navigates and gathers data from a martian lava tube. The resulting design is shown in Fig. 1.