DESIGN FEATURES OF NOVEL HIGH ENERGY IMPULSIVE DRIVE OF UNDERACTUATED MOBILE ROBOT FOR PLANETARY EXPLORATION Łukasz Wiśniewski (1,2) , Jerzy Grygorczuk (2,1) , Daniel Mege (1,3) , Joanna Gurgurewicz (4,1) (1) Space Research Centre PAS, Bartycka 18a, 00-716 Warszawa, Poland, Email: [email protected](2) Astronika Sp. z o.o., Bartycka 18, 00-716 Warszawa, Poland (3) Laboratoire de planétologie et géodynamique, Université de Nantes, France (4) Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław, Poland ABSTRACT The article provides design details of HOPTER – a lightweight (10 kg) hopping robot for planetary exploration. The article devotes particular attention to the drive mechanism of the three symmetrical actuating legs - the muscles of the system. Particularly, energy for a jump (up to 50J and 1800 N force in each leg) is accumulated in drive springs by the mechanism consisting of a BLDC motor, a ball screw, latch system with an electromagnetic release. Each leg can be controlled separately to a different level of energy, and hence gives a possibility of directing the HOPTER in any direction in a 3D space. Attention is brought to the high durability and strength of the mechanism. The advantages and drawbacks of the solution are presented together with a summary of work and applicability of the system to space missions, i.e. as an add-on to a rover scout or as an independent swarm of robots. INTRODUCTION AND STATE OF THE ART Constantly ongoing advancement in space exploration of celestial bodies requires novel forms of locomotion. This is to provide traversing capabilities not only on flat terrain (i.e. landers, rovers) but also more sophisticated environments, e.g.: undulated terrain or reduced gravity. Among many forms of locomotion, hopping is one of the most efficient and universal ways of mobility. This can be justified by a fact that hopping allows to manoeuver over obstacles that are much larger than the robot itself, traction with the ground is not that important, and especially plays less important role with the decrease of gravity. Currently there are several known or proposed solutions of hopping systems for space exploration. In most cases they are considered for microgravity environments where could be used as a scout robot to reconnaissance surface of the celestial body. Among already implemented space flight systems we can list: PROP-F hopper for Russian Phobos-2 mission [1], MINERVA for Japanese Hayabusa mission [2], DLR’s MASCOT for Hayabusa-2 mission [3] or Philae lander for ESA’s Rosetta mission which essentially performed spectacular uncontrolled jumps on a surface of a comet [4]. Among prototyped and tested systems are, e.g. Hedgehog (JPL/Stanford) [5] or POGO (John Hopkins Univ.) [6]. All of those systems are focused on implementation to microgravity conditions (NEO, asteroids, comets, Phobos or other small moons). There are several known concepts for higher gravity, e.g. Mars Reconnaissance Lander [7] or Hopper with SMA Actuator [8], but those platforms are relatively large or with limited controllability. In contrary to those designs, we came up with an idea of HOPTER (Fig. 1) - a hopping robot for reduced gravity (including Mars or Moon), that would remain robust and energetic, could play a role of a scout robot for a larger rover or a lander, while being agile and well controllable. Figure 1. HOPTER visualization and its hopping sequence simulated in MSC.Adams (here jumping on a 3-meter cliff in Martian gravity) [10] HOPTER’s design and working principles differ from the known solutions. Analysis of scientific instrumentation for that robot was presented in [9]. Mobility study was presented recently in [10]. In this article, we focus on the presentation of HOPTER’s drive mechanism design that allows to accumulating sufficient energy to perform effective jumps in Martian or smaller gravity. DESIGN OBJECTIVES AND REQUIREMENTS For the purpose of this article, a case of Mars exploration mission is studied. Our scenario considers HOPTER as a lightweight scout robot (10 kg) to support operations of a mother lander or a rover and that could perform few kilometers traverse in terrain normally considered as a high-risk (e.g. crater, canyon). Fulfilling such scenario would meet the general need for delivering scientific instrumentation to the areas normally not accessible for rovers and would significantly lower the mission risk of exploring 3m Ø 0.62m 0.32m ___________________________________________________________________ Proc. ‘ESMATS 2017’, Univ. of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, U.K., 20–22 September 2017
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DESIGN FEATURES OF NOVEL HIGH ENERGY IMPULSIVE DRIVE OF
UNDERACTUATED MOBILE ROBOT FOR PLANETARY EXPLORATION
Łukasz Wiśniewski(1,2), Jerzy Grygorczuk(2,1), Daniel Mege(1,3), Joanna Gurgurewicz(4,1)
(1) Space Research Centre PAS, Bartycka 18a, 00-716 Warszawa, Poland, Email: [email protected] (2) Astronika Sp. z o.o., Bartycka 18, 00-716 Warszawa, Poland
(3) Laboratoire de planétologie et géodynamique, Université de Nantes, France (4) Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław, Poland
ABSTRACT
The article provides design details of HOPTER – a
lightweight (10 kg) hopping robot for planetary
exploration. The article devotes particular attention to the
drive mechanism of the three symmetrical actuating legs
- the muscles of the system. Particularly, energy for a
jump (up to 50J and 1800 N force in each leg) is
accumulated in drive springs by the mechanism
consisting of a BLDC motor, a ball screw, latch system
with an electromagnetic release. Each leg can be
controlled separately to a different level of energy, and
hence gives a possibility of directing the HOPTER in any
direction in a 3D space. Attention is brought to the high
durability and strength of the mechanism. The
advantages and drawbacks of the solution are presented
together with a summary of work and applicability of the
system to space missions, i.e. as an add-on to a rover
scout or as an independent swarm of robots.
INTRODUCTION AND STATE OF THE ART
Constantly ongoing advancement in space exploration of
celestial bodies requires novel forms of locomotion. This
is to provide traversing capabilities not only on flat
terrain (i.e. landers, rovers) but also more sophisticated
environments, e.g.: undulated terrain or reduced gravity.
Among many forms of locomotion, hopping is one of the
most efficient and universal ways of mobility. This can
be justified by a fact that hopping allows to manoeuver
over obstacles that are much larger than the robot itself,
traction with the ground is not that important, and
especially plays less important role with the decrease of
gravity.
Currently there are several known or proposed solutions
of hopping systems for space exploration. In most cases
they are considered for microgravity environments where
could be used as a scout robot to reconnaissance surface
of the celestial body. Among already implemented space
flight systems we can list: PROP-F hopper for Russian
Phobos-2 mission [1], MINERVA for Japanese
Hayabusa mission [2], DLR’s MASCOT for Hayabusa-2
mission [3] or Philae lander for ESA’s Rosetta mission
which essentially performed spectacular uncontrolled
jumps on a surface of a comet [4]. Among prototyped and
tested systems are, e.g. Hedgehog (JPL/Stanford) [5] or
POGO (John Hopkins Univ.) [6]. All of those systems are
focused on implementation to microgravity conditions
(NEO, asteroids, comets, Phobos or other small moons).
There are several known concepts for higher gravity, e.g.
Mars Reconnaissance Lander [7] or Hopper with SMA
Actuator [8], but those platforms are relatively large or
with limited controllability.
In contrary to those designs, we came up with an idea of
HOPTER (Fig. 1) - a hopping robot for reduced gravity
(including Mars or Moon), that would remain robust and
energetic, could play a role of a scout robot for a larger
rover or a lander, while being agile and well controllable.
Figure 1. HOPTER visualization and its hopping
sequence simulated in MSC.Adams (here jumping on a
3-meter cliff in Martian gravity) [10]
HOPTER’s design and working principles differ from the
known solutions. Analysis of scientific instrumentation
for that robot was presented in [9]. Mobility study was
presented recently in [10]. In this article, we focus on the
presentation of HOPTER’s drive mechanism design that
allows to accumulating sufficient energy to perform
effective jumps in Martian or smaller gravity.
DESIGN OBJECTIVES AND REQUIREMENTS
For the purpose of this article, a case of Mars exploration
mission is studied. Our scenario considers HOPTER as a
lightweight scout robot (10 kg) to support operations of a
mother lander or a rover and that could perform few
kilometers traverse in terrain normally considered as a
high-risk (e.g. crater, canyon).
Fulfilling such scenario would meet the general need for
delivering scientific instrumentation to the areas
normally not accessible for rovers and would
significantly lower the mission risk of exploring
3m
Ø 0.62m
0.32m
___________________________________________________________________ Proc. ‘ESMATS 2017’, Univ. of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, U.K., 20–22 September 2017