This project is aimed at studying, designing and realizing an anthropomorphic robot with a free floating base. The goal is to control the robot aimed at reaching every position of his working space minimizing one generalized displacement relating to one of the degrees of freedom of the robot base without any thruster action. The innovative aspect is that the experiment is performed in a 3D dimensional space at zero-g using a robot which has a floating base. The base is characterized by inertia and mass of the same order of the robotic arm. This peculiarity produces a considerable dynamic coupling and possible failure of conventional manipulator control law. The challenge is to compensate the arm movements without using thrusters. The paper reports results of simulations and data obtained on parabolic flight experiments illustrating the experimental test-bed. This work presents progresses and results obtained by means of a free-flying space robot prototype developed for space extra vehicular activity (EVA) and for space servicing missions.
This paper describes the SPONGE experiment (Sounding rocket Propellant OrieNtation microGravity Experiment) developed at CISAS in collaboration with Thales Alenia SpaceItaly. The aim of this experiment is to provide the data for the validation of the CFD code created to study and design propellant management devices.SpongeCompressibleFoam is a code based on the OpenFOAM Platform, written at CISAS to simulate propellant management devices. The latter are passive static metal structures used in rocket tanks to control propellant behavior; they work using surface tension to ensure gas-free liquid delivery to the tank outlet. SPONGE flew on board the REXUS 9 ESA/SSC/DLR sounding rocket in February 2011, it is based on two counter rotating plates: (i) the experimental plate, on which the control equipment and a polycarbonate tank containing the sponge test-sample are placed and (ii) the balancing plate, rotating in the opposite direction with respect to the experimental plate and ensuring no momentum transfer to the rocket.The system rotates at four different angular velocities, allowing the study of the sponge and its retention capability under different centrifugal forces. The design and results are presented.
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