A Novel End-Effector for Lunar Sample Acquisition and Return

According to the specifications of the lunar sample acquisition and return plan, this paper presents a novel end-effector, which possesses the abilities of sampling, riddling and self unlocking, and also can fits in the special environment of low gravity and mechanics of lunar soil. During the design process, design theories in the bionics, soil mechanics and grain substance mechanics are adopted, and also the EDEM and ADAMS are applied to controlling the design details in order to enhance sampling efficiency and reduce energy consumption. Finally, a 4-DOF (degree of freedom) robot arm-based test bed is built to testify the correctness of the simulation results and the calculation results. Also, the practicability of the end-effector is validated on the test bed.