Mechatronic Design and Positioning Accuracy Characterisation of a Robotic Arm for Exploration Rovers

Upcoming planetary exploration missions will see extensive use of rovers for both scientific tasks, building tasks and astronaut assisting tasks. An essential element to carry out these tasks is the presence of a robotic arm. In this work, the mechatronic design of a lightweight and modular robotic arm for a planetary exploration rover is presented. The presented 4DOF solution was found to provide enough dexterity to collect target samples due to the non-holonomic constraints provided by the arm’s supporting rover, allowing reduced mass and power budget. The rover arm control software is based on the Robot Operative System (ROS) framework. Positioning accuracy has been evaluated with TagSLAM, a low-cost tracking method based on AprilTag fiducial markers.