SBIR Phase I: Generalized Approach to Robotic Thermal Management

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将使在空间领域使用地面工业的商业机器人系统成为可能。这项技术将使航天工业能够采用成本较低的商业系统来操作空间机器人，而不需要昂贵的定制或独特的建造方法。这一创新使发展中的空间经济能够迅速利用在陆地上开发的新能力，迅速增加在轨检查、组装和操作活动的节奏。能够保持持久和分散的存在，并在空间远程进行更常规、更活跃的操作，将增进对空间环境、空间与陆地系统之间的相互作用(例如气候/天气)的了解，并将提供对真空和等离子体与空间材料和部件相互作用的新理解。这些活动将有助于提高空间商业化的速度和建立空间经济的基本基础设施要素，包括通信、资源管理、运输以及货物和服务的贸易或交换。由此产生的商业影响可能会加剧和加速从政府主导的空间领域向真正的商业空间经济过渡的持续趋势。这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目将研究管理真空环境中操作的热挑战的新方法，技术目标是实现商用机器人系统的执行器和计算元件更广泛的热操作范围。商业机器人的常见故障模式，特别是影响机械臂位置位置精度重复性的问题和控制器板部件故障，将在典型的近地轨道场景中预期的热真空和冷真空工作范围内进行分析。这些实验数据，结合热模拟，将被用来确定最高价值的部件或材料特性修改以及可以实施的操作限制，以将对商业生产的影响降至最低。实现更大的运行范围将使商业机器人子系统能够在不同的轨道制度和不同的照明条件下发挥更大的作用，而不会造成代价高昂的定制和操作影响(例如仅允许在特定的阳光条件下运行)。该结果还将向商业机器人系统开发商提供反馈，这些反馈可用于提高陆地机器人在更广泛的陆地环境中的健壮性和效率，随着系统的发展在太空中提供进一步的改进。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be enabling the use of commercial robotic systems from terrestrial industries in the space domain. This technology will allow the space industry to adopt lower cost, commercial systems for space robotic operation, without the need for expensive customization or unique build approaches. This innovation allows the developing space economy to quickly leverage new capabilities developed terrestrially, rapidly increasing the cadence of on-orbit inspection, assembly, and operational activities. The ability to maintain a persistent and distributed presence and conduct more regular, active operations remotely in space will increase the understanding of the space environment, interactions between space and terrestrial systems (e.g. climate/weather), and will provide new understanding of vacuum and plasma interactions with materials and components in space. These activities will serve to increase the rate of commercialization of space and the build-up of the fundamental infrastructure elements of a space economy, including communications, resource management, transport, and trade or exchange of goods and services. The resulting commercial impact may accentuate and accelerate an ongoing trend in the transition from a government-dominated space domain to a true commercial space economy. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will study new approaches to managing thermal challenges of operating in a vacuum environment with the technical goal of achieving a wider thermal operating range for the actuators and computing elements of commercial robotic systems. Common failure modes of commercially available robots, specifically issues affecting repeatability of positional accuracy on robotic arm position and controller board component failure, will be analyzed over both hot and cold vacuum operating ranges expected in typical low Earth orbit scenarios. This experimental data, combined with thermal modeling, will be used to identify the highest value component or material property modifications and operational constraints that can be implemented to minimally impact commercial production. Achieving a wider operating range will result in commercial robotic subsystems being able to play a greater role in various orbital regimes and under varying lighting conditions without costly customization and operational impacts (such as allowing operations only in specific sunlight conditions). The results will also provide feedback to commercial robotic system developers that can be used to increase the robustness and efficiency of terrestrial robots in a broader range of terrestrial environments, providing further improvement in space as systems evolve.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.