Design of a Lunar Architecture for Tree Traversal in Service of Cabled Exploration

Abstract

Traditional wheeled locomotion systems struggle to climb slopes greater than 20◦ and are unable to independently return samples from lunar regions of interest such as ISRU-enabling permanently shadowed polar craters. To reliably enable a diverse range of future robotic activities within lunar craters, this paper presents LATTICE, a lightweight, rapidly deploying, long-lived robotic infrastructure. Utilizing a novel, terrain agnostic, cabled locomotion modality, it is well equipped to repeatedly transport existing robotic systems and scientific hardware into and out of lunar craters and provide power for sustained activities within. LATTICE may be scaled indefinitely, providing a framework for unprecedented bulk transportation of volatile-containing regolith collected in permanently shadowed craters across the lunar surface and beyond.

Additional details