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的商业机器人系统能够在空间领域使用。 这项技术将使航天工业能够采用成本较低的商业系统进行空间机器人操作，而不需要昂贵的定制或独特的构建方法。 这一创新使发展中的太空经济能够迅速利用地面开发的新能力，迅速增加在轨检查，组装和运营活动的节奏。 能够在空间保持持久和分散的存在并进行更经常、更积极的远程操作，将增进对空间环境、空间和地面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的了解。 这些活动将有助于提高空间商业化的速度和空间经济基本基础设施要素的建设，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目前从政府主导的空间领域向真正的商业空间经济过渡的趋势。该小型企业创新研究（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，其技术目标是为商业机器人系统的致动器和计算元件实现更宽的热操作范围。 商用机器人的常见故障模式，特别是影响机器人臂位置和控制器板组件故障的位置精度的可重复性的问题，将在典型的低地球轨道情景中预期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以实施的操作限制，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使商业机器人子系统能够在各种轨道状态和不同的照明条件下发挥更大的作用，而不会产生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，这些系统可用于在更广泛的陆地环境中提高陆地机器人的鲁棒性和效率，随着系统的发展，进一步改善太空环境。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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.