Volcanobot refers to a series of robots designed for 3D mapping of post-eruptive volcanic fissures, with the aim of analyzing their geometry to discover their formation mechanism.
In the summers of 2014 & 2015 I designed, fabricated, and tested generations 2 and 3 of Volcanobot. I also assisted in field testing during spring of 2015, where we deployed Volcanobot 2 at Mount Kilauea’s 1969 fissure system in Hawaii.
I performed all mechanical and electrical design and fabrication for the robots, which were designed to be highly mobile, compact, tethered platforms capable of steering themselves along a vertical wall. The robots used a short-range 3D depth sensor to record point cloud data of the fissure during descent and ascent.
Publications related to this project:
Carolyn E. Parcheta, Catherine A. Pavlov, Nicholas Wiltsie, Kalind C. Carpenter, Jeremy Nash, Aaron Parness, Karl L. Mitchell. A robotic approach to mapping post-eruptive volcanic fissure conduits. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research,
Volume 320, 2016, Pages 19-28. Link.
Carolyn E. Parcheta, Jeremy Nash, Aaron Parness, Karl L. Mitchell, Catherine A Pavlov. Narrow Vertical Caves: Mapping Volcanic Fissure Geometries. 2nd International Planetary Caves Conference, held 20-23 October, 2015 in Flagstaff, Arizona. LPI Contribution No. 1883, p.9010. Link.
Press related to this project:
Catherine Pavlov 