SBIR Phase I: Generalized Approach to Robotic Thermal Management

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将使地面工业在空间领域使用商业机器人系统成为可能。这项技术将允许航天工业采用更低成本的商业空间机器人操作系统，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陆地上开发的新能力，迅速增加在轨检查、装配和操作活动的节奏。在空间远程保持持久和分布式存在并开展更有规律、更积极行动的能力，将增加对空间环境、空间与地面系统（如气候/天气）之间相互作用的了解，并将提供对真空和等离子体与空间材料和组件相互作用的新认识。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、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。这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将研究在真空环境中管理热挑战的新方法，其技术目标是为商业机器人系统的执行器和计算元件实现更广泛的热操作范围。商用机器人的常见故障模式，特别是影响机器人手臂位置精度的可重复性和控制器板组件故障的问题，将在典型的低地球轨道场景下的热真空和冷真空操作范围内进行分析。这些实验数据与热建模相结合，将用于确定最高价值的组件或材料性能修改以及可实施的操作限制，以最大限度地减少对商业生产的影响。实现更广泛的操作范围将导致商业机器人子系统能够在各种轨道制度和不同的光照条件下发挥更大的作用，而无需昂贵的定制和操作影响（例如仅允许在特定的阳光条件下操作）。研究结果还将为商业机器人系统开发商提供反馈，用于在更广泛的陆地环境中提高地面机器人的鲁棒性和效率，随着系统的发展，在太空中提供进一步的改进。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.