Horizontal Drilling with Seabed Robotic Explorer

Mineral resources such as rare earths are deposited 2 to 3 m below the seafloor; for detailed studies to elucidate their origin and existence, it is necessary to collect samples of seafloor sediments. Currently, vertical drilling is commonly used to collect samples, but it is inefficient because the seafloor sediments are widely deposited horizontally. Therefore, we develop a robotic seafloor explorer. In this study, we worked on horizontal drilling as the next stage. First, a mechanical model of the robot's penetration into the ground during horizontal excavation was developed, and the expected challenges of horizontal drilling were discussed based on the model. After that, horizontal excavation experiments were conducted, and the challenges were clarified from the results.