Lunar Rover with Multiple Science Handling Capability

A rover design study was undertaken for exploration of the Moon. Rovers that have been launched in the past carried a suite of science payload either onboard its body or on the robotic arm’s end. No rover has so far been launched and tasked with “carrying and deploying” a payload on an extraterrestrial surface. This paper describes a lunar rover designed for deploying payload as well as carrying a suite of instruments onboard for conventional science tasks. The main consideration during the rover design process was the usage of existing, in-house technology for development of some rover systems. The manipulation subsystem design was derived from the technology of Light Weight Robot, a dexterous arm originally developed for terrestrial applications. Recent efforts have led to definition of a mission architecture for exploration of the Moon with such a rover. An outline of its design, the manipulating arm technology and the design decisions that were made has been presented

Discrete gust response analysis of SARAS aircraft

The objective of this work is to analyze the aerodynamic response of SARAS transport aircraft to a gust condition. A rigid airframe is assumed. The increments in load factors due to vertical gust are calculated for gust gradient distances varying from 30 to 350ft as per Federal Aviation Requirements (FAR) specifications. The variations in the angles of attack due to gust and airplane motion are also studied. This tuned discrete gust analysis includes the effects of unsteady aerodynamics. The analysis is performed considering the aircraft plunge degree of motion (tail-off). The effect of damping due to the tail contribution is also studied

Effect of Groove Size on Aerodynamic Performance of a Low Reynolds Number UAV Propeller (Part II)

Following on from the author's previous work on grooved propellers, numerical investigations are carried out on Applied Precision Composites Slow Flyer 10×7 propeller. Computational Fluid Dynamics is used to analyze the novel design. The grooved sections considered have a rectangular geometry measuring 0.1×0.3mm, 0.2×0.1mm, 0.2×0.2mm and 0.2×0.3mm which are placed at 0.09c, 0.17c, 0.32c and 0.42c from the leading edge. The results of the study showed that the presence of grooves modified the flow characteristics having only a negative impact on the thrust performance. However, the grooves improved the power performance due to torque reduction. The analysis of the KP results showed, in most models, the low torque relative to the baseline in the operational range of the low to medium advance ratio range. However, the improvement in torque did not improve the efficiency in all models

Systems Study for Robotic Moon Missions

Exploration of the Moon, in the near future, will be progressed with robotic surface missions. A study of locomotion, manipulation, power, thermal control, and navigation subsystems has been completed. The subsystems and their technologies are discudded with particular attention towards deployment in one mobile platform for lunar surface operations