CRATER: A Regolith Collection Robot for In-Situ Manufacturing of Lightweight Metamaterials

The use of lunar regolith for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) offers a promising approach to a more sustainable presence on the Moon, especially as humanity looks to return. This paper introduces the design and development of an autonomous robot for the collection of lunar regolith. Capable of integrating into the Automated Reconfigurable Mission Adaptive Digital Assembly Systems (ARMADAS) project at NASA's Ames Research Center, the addition of this robot will support NASA’s Autonomous Robotic Construction of Lunar Surface Infrastructure (ARC-LSI) study. The ARMADAS project is a system of builder robots capable of autonomous assembly of lattice building blocks (termed "voxels" for volumetric pixels) for habitat structures, antenna arrays, and other infrastructure. The Collection Robot for Automated Terrestrial Excavation of Regolith (CRATER) employs an ARMADAS-compatible lattice building block collection container, a rotating collection drum, and a 4-wheel drive system. The regolith obtained by the collection drum will be deposited in the mobile containers to be processed and utilized for manufacturing purposes within the ARMADAS system. Furthermore, these containers are compatible with a rail-cart transport robot that operates externally on the voxel structure via a dedicated track. Although the current metamaterial building block is produced from a carbon fiber composite, the use of regolith in its place has held a promising outlook. The functionality and performance of CRATER will be evaluated after integration into the ARMADAS robotic system at the NASA Ames Research Center’s Roverscape—a robotics research, development and test facility. This proof of concept robot is a step forward towards sustainable regolith collection and processing for in-situ manufacturing and resource utilization for future lunar habitats.