An Intelligent Mechanism for Polar Snow Sample Collection, Transportation, and Portable Storage

The surface snowpack in polar regions serves as a vital medium for reconstructing past climates, analyzing present conditions, and predicting future environmental changes. Presently, surface snow sampling in polar regions is predominantly manual, posing challenges in terms of personnel safety and sample purity. To address these challenges, a detachable sampling mechanism installed at the end of polar exploration robots has been proposed to achieve unmanned, diversified, and contamination-free collection of snow samples. Firstly, innovative design principles were applied to the sampling mechanism. A six-axis sampling arm was employed to carry out various sampling tasks in confined spaces.An end actuator was employed to facilitate the docking, separation, and portable storage of the gripper.Subsequently, theoretical analysis and simulation studies were carried out on the mechanism. Finally, a prototype of the sampling mechanism was developed, and experiments were conducted to validate the rationality and feasibility of the structure and principles. Tests were conducted to assess sampling capabilities and the docking and separation of the gripper.