Surface Climbing Robot for Planetary Exploration

Engineering Undergraduate Thesis Video Presented by Mihir Joshi Planetary exploration is limited to the use of ground-based vehicles such as planetary rovers. To gain a deeper understanding of the geological composition of other planets such as Mars through stratigraphy, we seek to benefit from climbing inclined natural surfaces for scientific gain. The Surface Climbing Robot for Application to Planets (SCRAP) was designed and developed to climb rough surfaces analogous to rocky surfaces present on Mars. SCRAP is a teleoperated climbing robot that is capable of climbing rough inclined surfaces whilst relaying its telemetry to a Ground Station. The climbing robot was developed to traverse on near-horizontal surfaces, make transitions from the horizontal to the vertical, climb vertical brick walls, climb rocky inclined surfaces, and finally climb near-vertical rocky surfaces to prove its applicability for planetary exploration. Future work would see a design modification making way for a method of reliably descending from a height it reaches, amongst room for autonomous operation.