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Automated Drilling for Space ExplorationNovember 2006
Now that the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission rovers have found evidence of water once existing on the planet, scientists want to explore beneath the planet's surface for water and, perhaps, evidence of life. For this work, NASA will need robotic drilling systems that can operate in severe conditions and without human supervision. The Intelligent Systems Division’s Deployable Autonomy Technologies Group, led by Brian Glass, is developing automation software to operate these drills. The goal of the Automated Drilling project is to develop enabling information technologies for planetary subsurface exploration, specifically the iterative spiral implementation and field testing of drilling automation.
Glass and his team are collaborating with the Space Science Division at NASA Ames Research Center, Honeybee Robotics, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the SETI Institute, QSS Group, Inc., the Mars Institute, and RIACS to develop these new technologies, which include low-power, dry Mars-prototype drill bits modified for Arctic conditions; control software; a dynamic shaft flexural model; dynamic failure models; and a hybrid diagnostic module. Glass and his colleagues are testing their new automation and control technologies for drilling at “Mars analog” sites that range from the frigid Canadian Arctic to the surreal, almost lunar landscape of Rio Tinto in Spain.
The DAME test site sits inside Haughton Crater on Devon Island in the High Arctic, on a thick layer of grey fallback breccia.
The Drilling Automation for Mars Exploration (DAME) project, being conducted at the Haughton Crater on Devon Island in the Arctic, is NASA's only project devoted to developing controls and software for extraterrestrial drilling automation. DAME uses a modified drill from Honeybee Robotics, the company that developed the MER Rock Abrasion Tool, used by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars to grind off the surface of rocks so freshly exposed surfaces could be examined. The DAME team conducted its first field tests on Devon Island in August 2004. Drilling several meters into the frozen soil and permafrost, they produced a variety of fault conditions, along with the data needed to identify and analyze them. DAME researchers have since developed computer models that allow an autonomous system to analyze and respond to these situations.
In July 2006, Glass and his colleagues completed field tests with three objectives: to operate for completely drill-controlled hands-off shifts of three hours or longer; to reach a depth of 3 meters or more into the breccia; and for the automation to naturally encounter, recognize, and correctly respond to at least three of six known major fault modes. During these tests, the team encountered not just two or three fault modes, but all six, unprompted. The last one (choking on excess cuttings) came on July 24, six days into the test. The automated drilling software successfully handled five of the six fault modes, recognizing them, reacting, and performing the right recovery action, with the human crew acting as observers. The first time the automation took remedial action to break through an ice layer; it tried three times, and on the third cycle it broke through and resumed normal drilling.
DAME exceeded its other two goals as well, operating for a cumulative total of 43 hours of autonomous drilling, broken into shifts; the longest continuous shift was 4.5 hours. The final depth reached was 3.22m before drilling stopped on July 28. The drilling project included a successful live demonstration on July 24 via videoconference to a group of Mars Technology Program managers and scientists in California.
After meeting and passing all project goals, the drilling rig was allowed to operate unwatched and unmonitored in the crater while the human team went back to base camp for a celebratory dinner and a lecture. The drill automation worked perfectly in the team's absence for four hours, drilling, handling an encountered fault, and then continuing just like the team hopes a future descendant will on Mars.
A Discovery Channel video crew recorded footage of the Devon Island research projects for a documentary scheduled to air in November 2006. See the latest news on these Automated Drilling projects.
