Near-Surface Rapid Soil Characterization System

The objective of the proposed effort is to prove the feasibility and develop preliminary concepts for a rugged, portable, and robust system capable of assessing in-situ soil properties. Currently a rapid soil characterization system does not exist and the proposed work is essential to the development of such a device. Honeybee Robotics has much experience and expertise in planetary drilling and sampling system mechanism and automation design and implementation. The challenging requirements of the proposed rapid soil characterization system (RSCS) is similar in many ways to the unique systems developed by Honeybee for in situ planetary exploration of Mars, comets, the Moon, etc. These requirements include low mass, low power, semi- to fully-autonomous operation, sensor integration, and precision sample acquisition and manipulation. The proposed Phase I effort will focus on concept development and breadboard testing to determine the feasibility of integrating several types of sensors into a single one- to two-person-deployed RSCS and how the system will rapidly penetrate to depth and analyze (and potentially capture samples of) the soil. Phase II will result in a fully-integrated field-deployable RSCS prototype.