Study on Underground Space Excavating Machine

A National Research and Development Program on Underground Space Development Technology has started in 1989. In this program, an automated excavating machine will be developed to construct an underground dome. This paper describes three basic studies, locomotion system, manipulation system, and task planning system, which are required for the excavating machine. For the locomotion system, a pair of crawler and four legs are provided to perform the effective locomotion on the unstructured terrain. Parallel link mechanism is applied to the manipulation system since it has advantages such as large load capacity, simple mechanism, and good durability. Appropriate task planning including real-time prediction of soil behaviour is effective for automated excavation.