The possibility to change their function by instruction, rather than by making hardware changes, makes robot manipulators particularly attractive for use in space. In experiment facility applications, high precision machinery is needed for the handling of samples. Specialized machines for this are expensive to develop, yet are idle for much of their lives and cannot easily be adapted to other tasks during or after their term of duty. A study by Dornier, Fokker and Sener for ESA led to a feasible design of a modular manipulator arm with a simplified end-effector, largely using existing components and technologies, which is capable of meeting the requirments of a given application (for which a so-called 'Skeleton' concept is proposed), and in a more sophisticated form, could serve a group of facilities, (in the form of an 'Advanced' concept), thus capitalizing on the versatility offered by the technique to reduce the cost-per-facility of essential support. The paper describes the considerations to be made in the application of manipulators of small size in such applications and indicates their advantages.
Experiment manipulators for automatic sample handling
Versuchsmanipulatoren fuer die automatische Probenahme
Second European Space Mechanisms and Tribology Symp. European Space Agency (ESA), Meersburg ; SP-231 , Okt ; 221-226
1985
6 Seiten, 7 Bilder
Conference paper
English
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