Mars Science Laboratory Algorithms and Flight Software for Autonomously Drilling Rocks

One of the goals of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is to collect powderized samples from the interior of rocks in order to deliver these samples to onboard science instruments. This paper describes the algorithms and software used to control the drill, which is the component of the sample collection and delivery system that directly interacts with rocks to create and acquire powderized samples from their interior. This is the first time that autonomous drilling of rocks has ever been performed on another planet. One of the most important components of the algorithm used for drilling is a force feedback control system used to regulate the force applied to the rock during drilling. This algorithm and all of the other algorithms and software used to enable the process of robustly, efficiently, and autonomously drilling into rocks with a priori unknown and widely varying properties are described in detail in this paper. Results are shown from drilling rocks using the drill software on testbed hardware on Earth as part of the software development process. Results are also shown from the first holes drilled with the flight vehicle on Mars, thus successfully demonstrating the first extraterrestrial autonomous drilling of a rock.