Stinger Robot: A Self-Bracing Robotic Platform for Autonomous Drilling in Confined Underground Environments

TL;DR

The paper introduces the Stinger Robot, a compact autonomous drilling platform with a self-locking bracing mechanism and force-aware control, capable of stable operation in challenging underground environments for mining applications.

Contribution

It presents the first robotic architecture combining distributed force-bracing with autonomous drilling tailored for unstructured underground settings.

Findings

Successfully demonstrated autonomous stabilization and drilling in simulation.

Validated the robot's force-aware control strategy with preliminary hardware tests.

Showed potential for future modular collaborative mining operations.

Abstract

The increasing demand for critical raw materials has revitalized interest in abandoned underground mines, which pose extreme challenges for conventional drilling machinery due to confined, unstructured, and infrastructure-less environments. This paper presents the Stinger Robot, a novel compact robotic platform specifically designed for autonomous high-force drilling in such settings. The robot features a mechanically self-locking tri-leg bracing mechanism that enables stable anchoring to irregular tunnel surfaces. A key innovation lies in its force-aware, closed-loop control strategy, which enables force interaction with unstructured environments during bracing and drilling. Implemented as a finite-state machine in ROS 2, the control policy dynamically adapts leg deployment based on real-time contact feedback and load thresholds, ensuring stability without external supports. We demonstrate, through simulation and preliminary hardware tests, that the Stinger Robot can autonomously stabilize and drill in conditions previously inaccessible to nowadays mining machines. This work constitutes the first validated robotic architecture to integrate distributed force-bracing and autonomous drilling in underground environments, laying the groundwork for future collaborative mining operations using modular robot systems.