Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
lunar dust
solar arrays
robotic cleaning
long-reach manipulation
maintenance
Long-Reach Robotic Cleaning for Lunar Solar Arrays
🤖 AI Summary
Lunar dust accumulation significantly degrades the power generation efficiency of solar arrays on the Moon, posing a critical threat to the energy supply of long-duration missions. To address this challenge, this work proposes a lightweight, compact mobile robot equipped with a deployable long arm (0.3–1.0 m), a compliant wrist, end-effector force sensing, and vision-based guidance to enable low-intervention autonomous cleaning of large-area photovoltaic panels. The system employs a velocity-based admittance control strategy that stably maintains a normal contact force of approximately 2 N during interaction, achieving a root-mean-square force control error of only 0.2 N. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed architecture for maintaining lunar surface infrastructure.
📝 Abstract
Commercial lunar activity is accelerating the need for reliable surface infrastructure and routine operations to keep it functioning. Maintenance tasks such as inspection, cleaning, dust mitigation, and minor repair are essential to preserve performance and extend system life. A specific application is the cleaning of lunar solar arrays. Solar arrays are expected to provide substantial fraction of lunar surface power and operate for months to years, supplying continuous energy to landers, habitats, and surface assets, making sustained output mission-critical. However, over time lunar dust accumulates on these large solar arrays, which can rapidly degrade panel output and reduce mission lifetime. We propose a small mobile robot equipped with a long-reach, lightweight deployable boom and interchangeable cleaning tool to perform gentle cleaning over meter-scale workspaces with minimal human involvement. Building on prior vision-guided long-reach manipulation, we add a compliant wrist with distal force sensing and a velocity-based admittance controller to regulate stable contact during surface cleaning. In preliminary benchtop experiments on a planar surface, the system maintained approximately 2 N normal force while executing a simple cleaning motion over boom lengths from 0.3 m to 1.0 m, with RMS force error of approximately 0.2 N after initial contact. These early results suggest that deployable long-reach manipulators are a promising architecture for robotic maintenance of lunar infrastructure such as solar arrays, radiators, and optical surfaces.
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
long-reach manipulation
compliant wrist
force-controlled cleaning
deployable boom
lunar surface maintenance
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