Fangzheng Liu
AstroAnt
One of my designed tiny robots will be sent to the Lunar South Pole in the IM-2 landing mission!
Step I --- parabolic flights on Earth
This work is built on our group's past project Rovable - a miniature robotic swarm that can move on clothing and build an on body sensor network. We extend the applications of this platform to space. Since most of space systems (space station, satellite, spacecraft, etc.) are covered with protection Beta cloth, we want to build an on body sensor network for these space platforms. With modular design, each robot can carry different sensor payload to do inspection sensing for the space systems from outside.
The first step is testing such a miniature robotic swarm platform in microgravity environment. The test is divided into 2 phases: mobility test and sensor capability test.
Each robot has magnet rings on the wheels, which make them able to attach to any magnetic surfaces, or flexible fabric with another pair of magnet wheels that pinch the fabric in middle, which is shown as following image.
The model 1 is designed for testing the mobility of the such actuation mechanism.
Each model was tested on in two parabolic flights (30 parabolas/flight).
Model 1 was tested surfaces that are made up of different materials, including steel, aluminum with magnetic paint, and Beta cloth simulant. We tested the speed and obstacle overcoming capability of the Model 1 in Lunar/Martian/Zero gravity environment.
The model 2 is bigger, which has larger battery (longer lifetime), and can carry bigger sensor payload. We tested the sensing capability of the Model 2 in Lunar/Martian/Zero gravity environment.
The Model 2 can carry different sensor payloads. The payloads we tested include visual camera, IR camera, thermopile.
In this project, I finished the whole hardware, firmware, software, test equipment, and experiment design and development. The paper is under review now and coming soon.
Step II --- To the Moon to stay!!!
I designed a new model of the AstroAnt which will be sent to the moon by the middle of the year of 2024.
Our AstroAnt robot will be working on top of the MAPP-1 rover (developed by the Luanr outpost). The top of the rover is the radiator of the thermal system. Our AstroAnt robot can measure temperature from different positions and help with monitoring the performance of the thermal system.