Tech Briefs

This actuator has potential uses in military and automotive applications.

Actuators are critical to all the robotic and manipulation mechanisms that are used in current and future NASA missions, and are also needed for many other industrial, aeronautical, and space activities. There are many types of actuators that were designed to operate as linear or rotary motors, but there is still a need for low-force, low-noise linear actuators for specialized applications, and the disclosed mechanism addresses this need.
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Applications include industrial robotic arms, industrial machinery, and automobiles.

This invention is an electronically commutated brushless motor controller that incorporates Hall-array sensing in a small, 42-gram package that provides 4096 absolute counts per motor revolution position sensing. The unit is the size of a miniature hockey puck, and is a 44-pin male connector that provides many I/O channels, including CANbus, RS-232 communications, general-purpose analog and digital I/O (GPIO), analog and digital Hall inputs, DC power input (18–90 VDC, 0–l0 A), three-phase motor outputs, and a strain gauge amplifier.
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At the Rotation, Processing and Surge Facility (RPSF), the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) segments are processed after they arrive by rail prior to a Shuttle launch. Using overhead bridge cranes capable of lifting up to 200 tons, the engineers remove the rail cover of the SRB segments, inspect the propellant grain and metal surfaces and rotate the SRB segments to vertical and secure them on a pallet until launch.

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Shape memory alloy wires modulate the end-effector contact load for sample capture applications.

Sample acquisition from small bodies is a key capability needed for proposed comet and asteroid sample return missions. This investigation determines how to utilize shape memory materials (SMMs) in sampling booms that result in improved sampling capability. By training an SMM wire to remember a given straight or curved shape when heated or cooled down to a given temperature, a long wire with low inherent bending stiffness may be ejected or unreeled from a spacecraft and then transformed into a long thin beam via a controlled material phase transition. Once the phase transition has been induced, the wire exhibits a bending stiffness that did not exist before, and the deployed appendage operates now as a stiff robotic arm.
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Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas The Motion Base Shuttle Mission Simulator (MBSMS) Strain System is an innovative engineering tool used to monitor the stresses applied to the MBSMS motion platform tilt pivot frames during motion simulations in real time. The Strain System comprises hardware and software produced by several different companies. The system utilizes a series of strain gages, accelerometers, orientation sensor, rotational meter, scanners, computer, and software packages working in unison. By monitoring and recording the inputs applied to the simulator, data can be analyzed if weld cracks or other problems are found during routine simulator inspections. This will help engineers diagnose problems as well as aid in repair solutions for both current as well as potential problems.
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NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California An apparatus, denoted the “retractuator” (a contraction of “retracting actuator”), was designed to help ensure clean separation between the cruise stage and the entry-vehicle subsystem of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. The retractuator or an equivalent mechanism is needed because of tubes that (1) transport a heat-transfer fluid between the stages during flight and (2) are cut immediately prior to separation of the stages retractuator. The role of the retractuator is to retract the tubes, after they are cut and before separation of the subsystem, so that cut ends of the tubes do not damage thermal-protection coats on the entry vehicle and do not contribute to uncertainty of drag and consequent uncertainty in separation velocity.
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Robots like these could be used to search for victims of disasters.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California Progress has been made in the development of a family of robotic land vehicles having modular and minimalist design features chosen to impart a combination of robustness, reliability, and versatility. These vehicles at earlier stages of development were described in two previous NASA Tech Briefs articles: “Recon figurable Exploratory Robotic Vehicles” (NPO-20944), Vol. 25, No. 7 (July 2001), page 56; and “More About Reconfigurable Exploratory Robotic Vehicles” (NPO-30890), Vol. 33, No. 8 (August 2009), page 40. Conceived for use in exploration of the surfaces of Mars and other remote planets, these vehicles could also be adapted to terrestrial applications, including exploration of volcanic craters or other hostile terrain, military re connaissance, in spection of hazardous sites, and searching for victims of earthquakes, landslides, avalanches, or mining accidents. In addition, simplified versions of these vehicles might be marketable as toys.
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