Designing an Efficient Excavator Bucket for Lunar ISRU: A Comparative Study with Vision-Based Fill and Displacement Analysis

Abstract:This paper present a spiral-cavity wheel for lunar regolith excavation and a sensor-light evaluation stack that jointly estimates fill ratio (vision), sinkage (vision), and specific energy from actuator logs. In benchtop tests (four revolutions at 5, 10, and 15~RPM) against two literature baselines, the proposed wheel achieved higher excavated mass and fill ratio, delivering 2.2-3.0 times higher excavation rate while reducing specific energy by 29 % relative to a bucket-drum baseline. Normalized sinkage (mm/kg) was also lower, indicating stable traction without bogging. Effort-time traces show a steady torque envelope with repeatable cut-carry-dump cycles across speeds. We provide a retention index $\eta$ that correlates with fill ratio and a DEM setup that reproduces experimental trends with low error. Results suggest spiral-cavity wheels can replace heavier multi-actuator diggers when mass, simplicity, and energy efficiency are mission drivers.

Robotics (cs.RO)

arXiv:2609.25724 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2609.25724v1 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.25724 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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