Morphable beam: Concept and initial hardware for spacecraft inspection

Abstract

The majority of robotic arms used nowadays in Space are articulated 'joint-type' arms, adapted to dynamic purposes and especially manipulation. However, due to the rigidity of the different parts and the space occupied by the many actuators located on the arm itself, these arms occupy a large volume even when unused and their weight has to be taken very seriously into account when designing payloads. Although these arms are adapted for dynamic applications, these facts make them unfitted for remote inspection, such as inspecting the hole surface of a spacecraft for example, because they have a small reach and cannot be loaded easily on small spacecrafts. This is particularly the case for satellites and especially micro/nano satellites. In this paper, we present a new concept of device to answer these purposes and that we named 'Morphable Beam Device'. A beam is bended as it is deployed enabling us to produce various shapes. The flexibility of the arm makes it easy to store, and enables reaching distant targets of interest. We believe this kind of device can be a major step forward remote accessibility on small spacecrafts.