Lunar Underactuated Robotic Arm (LUnA-TP)

Completed TRL 6 (started at 4, targeting 6)

Description

Maxar is developing an advancement in robotic manipulator technology, increasing the TRL of a new kind of roboticmanipulator arm, using a single motor, belt drive, and electroadhesive brakes to drive many joints with a single electromechanical degree of freedom (DoF), the Lunar Under-actuated (LUnA) robotic arm. This project will develop a 1-2m reach prototype LUnA robotic arm to flight-like standards, building on terrestrial prototypes developed by SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute), and test the arm in a simulated lunar environment. The goal is to increase the manipulator technology to TRL 6 and in preparation future for lunar surface operations.

An under-actuated arm has potential advantages over the current state of the art in space robotics: it allows a reduction of production cost, mass, and power consumption (for comparable performance); allows the use of fewer electronic components and motors (common sources of failure and drivers of cost); and allows the remaining electronics and motors to be more safely housed away from the exposed joints, thereby reducing environmental constraints on design and operation. All of these improvements will mean that NASA and its commercial partners will have more opportunities to equip landers and rovers with robotic manipulators, thereby significantly increasing mission capabilities.

From a commercial perspective, Maxar suggests this technology development would be very attractive to the many lunar transport providers participating in the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, allowing them to provide mission enabling services to their payload customers. The LUnA development would ease cost and mass impact typically prohibitive to wide distribution of manipulation capabilities on these platforms. In addition, a next generation robotic manipulator ncorporating this technology would also be robust to a variety of hazardous environments encountered on Earth, including in ground defense, search and rescue, undersea, and nuclear applications.
As this project has progressed, the electrostatic brake was found to not meet the technological maturity requirements in time for integration into the final prototype. Traditional mechanical brakes are utilized in the LUnA prototype, though Maxar has received electrostatic brakes from SRI.

Benefits

This robotic arm design has the potential to reduce cost, mass, power, and complexity for robotic manipulation on the lunar surface. A low-cost robotic manipulator can add additional capabilities to assets on the lunar surface. A small robotic arm like this can offload small payloads from a CLPS lander or small rovers. It could also be utilized in simple sample collection or trenching use cases, again, either on a CLPS lander or small rover. While minimizing SWaP-C is always desirable for spaceflight applications, the unique configuration of this arm also locates the primary actuator and most of the electronics at the base of the arm, which may also simplify thermal control and dust mitigation. Maxar also seeks to infuse this technology for in-space servicing applications. It is yet to be seen if this technology is scalable to larger, more capable robotic arm applications and should be considered for future work.

Details

Technology area	Robotic Systems > Manipulation > Dexterous Manipulation
Program	Game Changing Development (GCD)
Lead organization	Maxar Technologies, Westminster, CO
Start date	2021-07-08
End date	2024-03-20

Project contacts

Listed on TechPort itself — the most direct way to ask about this specific project.

Jonathan M Rogers — jonathan.m.rogers@nasa.gov

How to get involved

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 6) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.