Space Missions Engineering Laboratory
Flexible manipulators
The topic of the research program developed about flexible structures is to study the design of flexible manipulators system for space activities. Today robotic manipulators tend to be large and heavy to ensure stiffness and accuracy, so they are not suitable for space applications. Lower mass robotic manipulators, however, are really suited for space applications due to their low cost of transporting mass into orbit; the drawback is that compact lightweight structures, although requiring less power, deform and vibrate to an unacceptable level, making high accuracy and precision hard to be reached.
The experimental test is conducted with a couple of two aluminum and composite material arm manipulators equipped with electric motors and integrated with an intelligent control architecture. These devices are very innovative because of their very high flexibility, their stringent pointing requirements and a very low first vibration frequency. Moreover, a visual-servoing control system is used for managing the positioning of the manipulators end-effectors and an intelligent sensor/actuators system is also used for damping the elastic vibrations generated by the flexibility of the structure.
Powered by CMSimple