Principal
Investigator:
Dr. Yoseph Bar-Cohen, JPL
JPL: Dr. Mircea Badescu, Dr. Xiaoqi Bao, Dr. Zensheu Chang, and Dr.
Stewart Sherrit
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This ultrasonic drilling mechanism does not require high axial load |
The USDC operated from a FIDO rover robotic arm |
The USDC operated from the Sojourner platform (a duplicate of the rover that was on Mars Pathfinder) |
In Dec. 2005, a 1.76-m deep drilled borehole in ice was created by the Gopher at Lake Vida, Antarctica |
This
Website describes the ultrasonic/sonic drilling activity of the JPL's Advanced
Technology Group and its NDEAA lab. The objective is to develop an
ultrasonic/sonic driller/corer (USDC) to enable acquiring samples from various
planets or small bodies (e.g., asteroid and comets) using low axial load and low
power. The drill bit not does require
sharpening, it can be made to operate at cryogenic and high temperatures,
non-round cross section cores can be created and it can be used to probe the
ground as well as deliver in-situ sensing down the borehole. The developed drills are driven by
piezoelectric actuated percussive mechanisms that require low preload (as low
as 10N), and can be operated using low average power. The drills were demonstrated to penetrate
rocks as hard as basalt and in one of the designs it was made as light as
400g.
Ultrasonic and sonic vibrations are responsible for the
drilling action. Piezoelectric stack actuator in the upper section excites
ultrasonic vibrations that are transformed into sonic hammering action. The drill bit is forced to go up and down but
it does not rotate. The impact of the
bit into the rock performs the drilling. Finite element analytical modeling was
developed to maximize the performance of the drill and allow effective design
of various configurations. The USDC was demonstrated to operate from a
Sojourner size rover as well as from the robotic arm of the FIDO rover. Drill head were made that weigh .4-kg (1-lb),
require axial load at the level of 3-10N and operated by as low as 3-W. So far the USDC was demonstrate to drill
25-mm (1-inch) deep holes in granite from a 4-kg platform, 15-cm and 15-mm
diameter in sandstone. Also, a Gopher version was developed and demonstrated to
drill up to 1.76-m deep in ice at Lake Vida, Antarctica.
The USDC was selected the NASA/JPL Technology
Spotlight for the month of April 2000. Further, USDC was selected by R&D
Magazine (in the Sept. 2000 issue, p. 135) as one of the 100 most
innovative instruments for the year 2000.
Significant improvement of the penetration rate was achieved by
augmenting the hammering action by rotation and use of a fluted bit to provide
effective cuttings removal. Generally,
hammering is effective in fracturing drilled media while rotation of fluted
bits is effective in cuttings removal.
To benefit from these two actions, a novel configuration of a percussive
mechanism was developed to produce an augmenter of rotary drills. A breadboard Percussive Augmenter of Rotary
Drills (PARoD) was developed with a 6.4 mm (0.25 inch) diameter bit and was
demonstrated to increase the drilling rate of rotation alone by 1.5 to over 10
times. Further, a large PARoD breadboard with 50.8 mm (2 inch) diameter bit was
developed and its tests are currently underway.
The PARoD is developed under a contract from the startup company, Placidus, and it is intended to establish a
prototype for commercial drills that will be produced and marketed by
Placidus.
The California Institute of Technology, which manages JPL for NASA, has granted Placidus an option to the rights to commercialize the technology in the fields of construction, shallow mining, and demolition.
View video reviewing the USDC
technology View video
reviewing the Ultrasonic Gopher technology (with high speed video)
USDC as JPL's Technology Spotlight JPL's Technology
Spotlight, April 2000.
A comparison of the USDC
with other techniques
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Viewgraphs
of a presentation on ultrasonic drilling at the Feb. 1998 TRIWG Review
Viewgraphs
of a presentation to the NASA Mechanisms Working Group, Dec. 15, 1998
"Modeling
of Horns for Sonic/Ultrasonic Applications,"
IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, held in Lake Tahoe, CA, 17-20
October 1999, pp. 647-651
"Comparison
of the Mason and KLM Equivalent Circuits for Piezoelectric Resonators in the
Thickness Mode,"
IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, held in Lake Tahoe, CA, 17-20
October 1999, pp. 621-626
"Ultrasonic/sonic
drilling/coring (USDC) for in-situ planetary applications," SPIE Smart
Structures 2000, March 2000, Newport Beach, CA, paper 3992-101
"Analyzing
the Impedance Resonance of Piezoelectric Stacks," Proceedings of the
IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Oct 22-25, 2000
"Ultrasonic/Sonic
Driller/Corer (USDC) as a Sampler for Planetary Exploration," Proceedings
of the 2001 IEEE Aerospace Conference on the topic of "Missions, Systems,
and Instruments for In Situ Sensing" (Session 2.05), Big Sky, Montana,
March 10-17, 2001.
"Ultrasonic/sonic
drilling/coring (USDC) for planetary applications," SPIE Smart
Structures 2001, March 2001, Newport Beach, CA, paper 4327-55
"Sample
Acquisition and In-Situ Analysis Using the Ultrasonic/Sonic Driller/Corer
(USDC) and Robotic Platforms," The 6th International Symposium on
Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space (i-SAIRAS-01),
Montreal, Canada, June 18-21, 2001
"Characterization
of Transducers and Resonators under High Drive Levels," IEEE
International Ultrasonics Symposium, Atlanta, GA, Oct. 7-10, 2001
"Novel
Horn Designs for Ultrasonic/Sonic Cleaning Welding, Soldering, Cutting and
Drilling," Paper 4701-34, Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures and
Materials Symposium, San Diego, CA, March 17-19, 2002
"Modeling
of particle flow due to ultrasonic drilling," Paper 4701-35, ibid
"Analysis
and Simulation of the Ultrasonic/Sonic Driller/Corer(USDC)," Paper
4701-36, ibid
"An
Ultrasonic Sampler and Sensor Platform for In-situ Astrobiological
Exploration," Paper 5056-55, Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures
Conference, San Diego, CA., Mar 2-6. 2003
"In-situ
Rock Probing Using The Ultrasonic/Sonic Driller/Corer (USDC)," Paper
Paper 5056-73, ibid
"Ultrasonic/Sonic
Sampler and Sensor Platform for In-situ Planetary Exploration,"
Proceedings of the ICMEMS Conf. held in Banff, Alberta, Canada, July 20 - July
23, 2003
"Modeling
and Computer Simulation of Ultrasonic/Sonic Driller/Corer (USDC),"
IEEE Transaction on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control (UFFC),
Vol. 50, No. 9, (Sept. 2003), pp. 1147-1160.
"Life
detection and characterization of subsurface ice and brine in the Mcmurdo dry
valleys using an ultrasonic Gopher," Third Mars Polar Science
Conference (2003)
"Definitive
mineralogical analysis of Martian rocks and soil using the CHEMIN XRD/XRF
instrument and the USDC sampler," Sixth International Conference on
Mars (2003)
"Use
of an Ultrasonic/Sonic Driller/Corer to obtain sample powder for CHEMIN, a
combined XRD/XRF instrument," Lunar and Planetary Science XXXIV (2003)
"Piezoelectrics
as Multifunctional Electromechanical Materials for Space Applications," JPL's
Group 354 Monthly Seminar, September 8, 2003
"Realtime sensing while drilling using the USDC and
integrated sensors," Eurosensors XVII Conference, Guimaraes, Portugal,
September 21-24, 2003
"Laboratory
Detection And Analysis Of Organic Compounds in Rocks Using HPLC and XRD
Methods," Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston, March
15-19, 2004.
"Evaluation
of rock powdering methods to obtain fine-grained samples for CHEMIN, a combined
XRD/XRF instrument," Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston,
March 15-19, 2004.
"Novel
Horn Designs for Power Ultrasonics," IEEE International Ultrasonics
Symposium, UFFC, Montreal, Canada, August 24-27, 2004.
"Resonance
Analysis of High Temperature Piezoelectric Materials for Actuation and
Sensing," Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures Conference San
Diego, CA., SPIE Vol. 5387-58, Mar 14-18. 2004
"Design
and analysis of ultrasonic horn for USDC," Proceedings of the SPIE
Smart Structures Conference San Diego, CA., SPIE Vol. 5388-34, Mar 14-18, 2004
"Subsurface
Ice and Brine Sampling Using an Ultrasonic/Sonic Gopher for Life Detection
....," Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures Conference San Diego,
CA., SPIE Vol. 5388-32, Mar 14-18, 2004
"Efficient
electromechanical network model for wireless acoustic-electric
feed-throughs," Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures Conference
San Diego, CA., SPIE Vol. 5758-44, Mar 7-10, 2005
"Smart
material/actuator needs in extreme space environments," Proceedings of
the SPIE Smart Structures Conference San Diego, CA., SPIE Vol. 5761-48, Mar
7-10, 2005
"Integrated
modeling of the Ultrasonic/Sonic Drill/Corer (USDC): procedure and analysis
results," Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures Conference San
Diego, CA., SPIE Vol. 5764-37, Mar 7-10, 2005
"Adapting
the Ultrasonic/Sonic Driller/Corer (USDC) for walking/climbing robotic
applications," Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures Conference San
Diego, CA., SPIE Vol. 5762-22, Mar 7-10, 2005
"Design
and analysis of ultrasonic horn for a Ultrasonic/Sonic Driller/Corer
(USDC)," Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures Conference San
Diego, CA., SPIE Vol. 5762-10, Mar 7-10, 2005
"The
Ultrasonic/Sonic Driller/Corer (USDC) as a subsurface drill, sampler, and lab-on-a-drill
for planetary exploration application," Proceedings of the SPIE Smart
Structures Conference San Diego, CA., SPIE Vol. 5762-21, Mar 7-10, 2005
“Subsurface Sampler and
Sensors Platform Using the Ultrasonic/Sonic Driller/Corer (USDC),” Proceedings of the SPIE
Smart Structures and Materials Symposium, SPIE Vol. #6529-18, an Diego, CA,
March 19-22, 2007
“Auto-Gopher
- a wire-line rotary-hammer ultrasonic drill”, Proceedings
of SPIE Smart Structures and Materials Conference, San Diego, CA, Vol. 7981,
paper# 135, March 2011
“Deep Drilling and Sampling
via the Wireline Auto-Gopher Driven by Piezoelectric Percussive Actuator and EM
Rotary Motor”,
Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures and Materials/NDE Symposium,
Paper No. # 8345 – 78, San Diego, CA, March 12-15, 2012
“Single piezo-actuator rotary-hammering (SPaRH) drill”, Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures and Materials/NDE Symposium, Paper No. # 8345 – 79, San Diego, CA, March 12-15, 2012
“High temperature
piezoelectric drill”,
Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures and Materials/NDE Symposium,
Paper No. # 8345 – 81, San Diego, CA, March 12-15, 2012
“Drilling, Coring and Sampling Using Piezoelectric Actuated Mechanisms: From the USDC to a Piezo-Rotary-Hammer Drill,” Invited Paper, 2012 Earth and Space, Symposium 2: Exploration and Utilization of Extraterrestrial Bodies, held at Pasadena, CA, April 15-18, 2012.
“Percussive Augmenter of
Rotary Drills (PARoD),”
Proceedings of the SPIE Smart Structures and Materials/NDE Symposium,
Paper No. # 8345 – 121, San Diego, CA, March 12-15, 2012
“Wireline Deep Drill for Exploration of Mars, Europa, and Enceladus”, 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, Montana, March 2-9, 2013.
Y. Bar-Cohen, K. Zacny, M. Badescu, H. J. Lee, S. Sherrit, X. Bao, G. L Paulsen, and L. Beegle, ”Auto-Gopher II– a biologically inspired deep drill for planetary exploration”, IEEE HKN, the BRIDGE magazine, Special issue featuring bio-inspired engineering, Vol. 112, No. 1 (April 2016) pp. 20-24
Y. Bar-Cohen, K. Zacny, M. Badescu, H. J.
Lee, S. Sherrit, X. Bao, D. Freeman, G. L Paulsen, and L. Beegle, “Auto-Gopher II – Wireline deep sampler
driven by percussive piezoelectric actuator and rotary EM motors”, CIMTEC
2016, 7th Forum on New Materials, Symposium H - Electroactive Polymers and
Shape Memory Polymers: Advances in Materials and Devices, Perugia, Italy, June
5-9, 2016
1. Y. Bar-Cohen, S. Sherrit, B.
Dolgin, T. Peterson, D. Pal and J. Kroh, “Smart-ultrasonic/sonic
driller/corer,” U.S. Patent No. 6,863,136, March 8,
2005.
2. Y. Bar-Cohen, S. Sherrit, B. Dolgin, X. Bao and S. Askin, “Ultrasonic/Sonic Mechanism of Deep Drilling (USMOD),” U.S. Patent No. 6,968,910, November 29, 2005.
3.
Y.
Bar-Cohen, and S. Sherrit, “Self-Mountable and Extractable Ultrasonic/Sonic
Anchor,” U.S. Patent No. 7,156,189,
January 2, 2007.
"NASA
DEVELOPS A DRILL FOR THE FUTURE," NASA Press Release, April 12, 2000
"NASA
Develops a Drill for the Future," brief NASA Press Release, April 12,
2000
"NASA Develops a
Drill for the Future," graphics of the NASA Press Release, April 12,
2000
"Drilling to a better understanding of Mars and the world beyond,"
EXN Discover Channel, Canada (includes video), April 13, 2000
Return to the JPL's NDEAA Webhub
Last updated – Feb. 29, 2002