Shovel Design and Testing for Micro-Quantitative Sampling of Shallow Moon Soil

In situ high-precision analyses of volatile abundance in lunar soil in the lunar polar regions require micro-quantification of test samples. In this paper, a sampling shovel scheme based on the end of a robotic arm was proposed. A shallow lunar soil profile was constructed by progressive shovel digging, micro-quantitative collection of lunar soil samples at fixed depths was achieved through the configuration of a fixed-capacity sampling chamber, and the shovel teeth could be used to scrape the debris formed by the water ice of the lunar soil for sample collection in extreme cases. To verify the feasibility of the sampling scheme, a simulated lunar soil profile shovel-digging sampling efficiency test platform was built, and progressive shovel-digging, fixed-capacity micro-sampling, and vibratory sampling tests were carried out. These tests show that the sampling shovel has the capability of constructing a 130 mm deep profile and a 200 ± 30 mg micro-quantitative sampling function. The research results provide a feasible scheme for the exploration and analysis of China’s lunar soil sampling in the polar regions of the Moon.