Adapting Novel Terrestrial Mining Technologies for Lunar Excavation

OffWorld is developing a system architecture to accomplish difficult tasks in harsh environments on earth, the moon, and beyond. Features of the swarm robotic industrial toolkit include a modular architecture, a common software stack, and shared AI and ML methodologies. OffWorld is developing these capabilities in revenue-generating markets on earth for adaptation off planet to the Lunar environment.nbsp; By leveraging simultaneous and parallel development paths for terrestrial and Lunar applications, OffWorld can rapidly develop, test, and operationalize the variety of capabilities necessary to deploy a functional Lunar excavation system. By commercializing large terrestrial markets in the mining and infrastructure sectors, OffWorld can build these capabilities primarily with revenue earned from commercial contracts and augmented by investment and other capital opportunities.nbsp; OffWorldrsquo;s technology roadmap includes parallel development pathways of terrestrial and space capabilities to target specific hardware, software, and AI/ML functions.nbsp; At the end of each of these projects, the hardware, software, and automation advances inform a data-driven evolution of the system architecture and CONOPs, until the system is ready for a demo in the Lunar environment.nbsp; This NASA Phase II project affords the opportunity to continue refinement of the excavation toolset including the mechanical tooling and the force application approach, as well as the mobility approach and the control software for excavation.nbsp; These lessons will incorporate into the full system design and move the architecture much closer to deployment.nbsp; Once the applications of excavation and transport are refined and tested, additional functions will be added to the growing skill set of capabilities.nbsp; The modular architecture of the OffWorld platform, combined with common software and AI methodologies enable rapid development of additional species of robots that can be used in additional industrial use cases.