The Dynamic Tensegrity Robotics Lab (DTRL) at NASA Ames Research Center is developing a compliant and distributed tensegrity robotic platform for planetary exploration. Working in collaboration with Ghent University, the DTRL built an untethered prototype robot, the SUPERball. In this work, multiple issues with the current SUPERball design are addressed, when considering an example mission to Titan. Specifically, engineering requirements for the mission are empirically validated, and the current design is extended under these requirements to meet expanded goals.Survival of impact forces under entry, descent, and landing are verified with a physical experiment performed in collaboration with the University of Idaho. Then, concepts for a fully-actuated redesign of SUPERball are generated, compared, and validated against current engineering requirements. This exploratory work moves the SUPERball project toward an eventual flight-ready design.\


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    Title :

    SUPERball: Exploring Tensegrities for Planetary Probes


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space (i-SAIRAS) ; 2014 ; Montreal, Canada


    Publication date :

    2014-06-17


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




    SUPERball v2: A Tensegrity Rover for Planetary Exploration

    Bruce, Jonathan E. / Vespignani, Massimo | NTRS | 2019


    System design and locomotion of SUPERball, an untethered tensegrity robot

    Sabelhaus, Andrew P. / Bruce, Jonathan / Caluwaerts, Ken et al. | IEEE | 2015



    PLANETARY PROBES

    Online Contents | 1997