The Trencher project is developing a bucket ladder style excavator designed for use in Lunar soil simulant, or regolith. The project began in 2019 as a research project at Michigan Tech's Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab, or PSTDL. Previous years of the project involved testing with regolith in both atmospheric, and vacuum conditions utilizing the PSTDL's Dusty Thermal Vacuum Chamber. The project is now working towards field testing utilizing the PDSTDL’s Hoplite rover as a test platform to test performance at a larger scale.
Over the past two years a CAD model for the field testing prototype has been developed, and manufacturing has started. This year we will be completing the manufacturing and assembly of the excavator, and its support systems, and completing development of the electrical, and data acquisition systems with the goal of conducting initial field tests in the fall of 2026, and working on areas for improvement in the spring of 2027.
Over the course of the 2021/2022 school year, the teams moved the bucket ladder from the PSTDL to a lunar regolith cart for atmospheric testing, and eventually testing at vacuum in the PSTDL's Dusty Thermal Vacuum Chamber. Testing in the PSTDL's DTVAC provided a realistic testing environment analogous to the temperatures and pressure on the Moon. After initial atmospheric testing had been completed, the Trencher was in the Spring of 2022 to the DTVAC. Several tests were conducted while collecting performance metrics such as power usage and the weight of excavated regolith.
Michigan Technological University