Concept of a underground habitat and the robots and energy sources that will build and power it.

by Andy Tomaswick , Universe Today

Underground habitats have recently become a focal point of off-planet colonization efforts. Protection from micrometeorites, radiation and other potential hazards makes underground sites desirable compared to surface dwellings. Building such subterranean structures presents a plethora of challenges, not the least of which is how to actually construct them. A team of researchers at the Delft University of Technology (TUD) is working on a plan to excavate material and then use it to print habitats. All that would be done with a group of swarming robots.

The idea stems from a grant opportunity posted by the European Space Agency. Students at the Robotic Building lab (RB) at TU Delft, led by Dr. Henriette Bier, were enthusiastic to participate in the challenge that focuses on in-situ resource utilization for off-Earth construction. The RB team, together with experts in material science, robotics, and aerospace engineering submitted an idea that was granted €100k to develop a preliminary proof of concept. 

The proposed approach focuses on the lab’s specialty—robotic building—and has four main components—digging out the regolith, printing a new habitat using an additive manufacturing process, coordinating the work between all the robots that would be needed to complete the tasks, and powering them as well as the habitat.

Excavating regolith with robots has been explored previously, but usually in the context of the moon. Different patterns of excavation are useful for building different structures, and the pattern the RB team focused on was a downwards sloping spiral. Such a structure could create a stable, safe structure within a relatively small footprint on the surface.