Analysis of sediments from rivers, lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, and other constructed surface water impoundments is an important tool to characterize the function and health of these systems, but is generally carried out manually. This is costly and can be hazardous and difficult for humans due to inaccessibility, contamination, or availability of required equipment. Robotic sampling systems can ease these burdens, but little work has examined the efficiency of such sampling means and no prior work has investigated the quality of the resulting samples. This article presents an experimental study that evaluates and optimizes sediment sampling patterns applied to a robot sediment sampling system that allows collection of minimally disturbed sediment cores from natural and man-made water bodies for various sediment types. To meet this need, we developed and tested a robotic sampling platform in the laboratory to test functionality under a range of sediment types and operating conditions. Specifically, we focused on three patterns by which a cylindrical coring device was driven into the sediment (linear, helical, and zig-zag) for three sediment types (coarse sand, medium sand, and silt). The results show that the optimal sampling pattern varies depending on the type of sediment and can be optimized based on the sampling objective. We examined two sampling objectives: maximizing the mass of minimally disturbed sediment and minimizing the power per mass of sample. This study provides valuable data to aid in the selection of optimal sediment coring methods for various applications and builds a solid foundation for future field testing under a range of environmental conditions.

中文翻译：

---

机器人沉积物取样系统的取样方法评估


对河流、湖泊、水库、湿地和其他人工地表水蓄水池的沉积物进行分析是表征这些系统的功能和健康状况的重要工具，但通常是手动进行的。由于难以接近、污染或所需设备的可用性，这是成本高昂的，并且对人类来说可能是危险和困难的。机器人采样系统可以减轻这些负担，但很少有工作检查这种采样装置的效率，而且之前也没有研究调查所得样品的质量。本文介绍了一项实验研究，评估和优化应用于机器人沉积物采样系统的沉积物采样模式，该系统允许从天然和人造水体中收集各种沉积物类型的受干扰最小的沉积物岩心。为了满足这一需求，我们在实验室开发并测试了机器人采样平台，以测试各种沉积物类型和操作条件下的功能。具体来说，我们重点关注三种模式，将圆柱形取芯装置驱动到三种沉积物类型（粗砂、中砂和淤泥）的沉积物中（线性、螺旋和锯齿形）。结果表明，最佳采样模式因沉积物类型而异，并且可以根据采样目标进行优化。我们研究了两个采样目标：最大化受干扰最小的沉积物的质量和最小化单位质量样品的功率。这项研究提供了宝贵的数据，有助于选择适合各种应用的最佳沉积物取芯方法，并为未来在各种环境条件下进行现场测试奠定了坚实的基础。