Pop-up mars rover with textile-enhanced rigid-flex PCB body

Abstract

This paper presents a novel manufacturing paradigm for constructing origami-inspired pop-up robots for future space exploration missions. The new approach uses a textile-enhanced rigid-flex printed circuit board (PCB) to implement a folding robot chassis using robust, spaceflight-tolerant materials, and integrates the robot electronics directly into the chassis for added compactness. The new approach also decouples the mechanical and electrical functions of the chassis flexures for improved kinematics and lifetime. This manufacturing paradigm was used to build PUFFER (Pop-Up Flat Folding Explorer Robot), a self-actuated pop-up rover being developed to provide a low-payload-cost mobility enhancement for future NASA missions.