Lighter, faster, more accurate geotechnical assessment
Geotechnical tools are used extensively to determine soil mechanical properties prior to building roads, field airports and buildings. Many current geotechnical tools, however, are bulky and difficult to automate. The innovative geotechnical instruments under development at Honeybee Robotics can be rapidly and/or remotely deployed for critical defense applications (trafficability assessment of roadways or airfields). There has also been significant interest from NASA for lunar surface operations.
- Miniature Bevameter. A bevameter (from Bekker Value Meter) is a vaned device for assessing soil strength properties. A conventional bevameter is large, requiring an overhead crane to be moved; we scaled it down for robotic deployment.
- Percussive Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (PDCP). The PDCP uses high frequency, low amplitude vibration to drive a rod into soil. The penetration rate indicates California Bearing Ratio and soil bearing strength. It is a good replacement for Static Cone Penetrometer (SCP) and Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP), and can be deployed robotically or by a single operator.
- Aerial Drop Penetrometer. In some instances, it is impossible to deploy a mobile robot or a human to investigate soil properties. In these cases, a drop penetrometer can be used, deployed from an aerial platform such as a UAV. Honeybee's drop penetrometer design acquires high fidelity data, transmitting the result over a satellite communication link.