Abstract:

NASA and other space organisations are working incessantly to create future generation Mars rovers for the assistance of astronauts and to explore the Martian surface. Rovers are required to explore Mars and gather all the requisite details and signs of any life on the planet. To make all this easy a rover should be equipped with a strong and flexible arm which should be capable of performing just like a human arm. It helps the rover to do various tasks like collecting and deploying specific tools, turning knobs, flipping switches, opening and closing drawers, writing message on the keyboard and collecting soil samples to test pH moisture and other compositions to be performed on-board and off-board. This paper explains the design, functioning and mobility of the arm, it is a uniquely designed four bar manipulator which gives 6 degrees of freedom to the end effector. The working of the end effector and wrist is also explained scrupulously. The arm has been designed, analysed and fabricated. Its was found easy to be operated remotely and gave much precise motion. This robot manipulator is found to be advantageous in remote manual operation where the operator needs to understand the view and then manipulate accordingly. The manipulator is mechanically constraint to suppress the change in orientation of the gripper and hence providing a stable camera feed to the operator. Where as in other jointed arm manipulators the camera feed is stabilized electronically. The simple and profound addition of the mechanical components aid to the actuator coding part.


Keywords— Mars exploration; Martian Soil; Planetary Robotics; Autonomy;