TMC-Sponsoring Blog Article
The „Studentische Arbeitsgruppe Raumfahrt“, STAR Dresden was founded in 2018 with the goal to establish a permanent platform for university students to get Hands-On-Experience in space projects. Since then, we have participated in the “European Space Elevator Challenge” and successfully launched two experiments onboard the “Bexus” balloon in northern Sweden.
Besides other projects, our group works currently on a model of a Mars Rover that will participate in the “European Rover Challenge” in Poland this summer. The rover will have to compete on several tasks in a mars-like terrain with over 30 other student teams from around the world. The tasks include simulations of various real-life situations, while the team takes the role of astronauts on a remote control station. So will the rover have to traverse challenging terrain without a video feed based on a map and landmarks. Other tasks include picking up probes with the onboard arm, excavating and taking pictures as well as drilling and taking soil samples. One of the most difficult tasks will be the manipulation of a switchboard. There will be knobs to turn, voltage to measure and a Three-Phase Plug to be inserted.
For all these tasks are various actors and sensors required. To reduce development time and costs for future projects, STAR internally develops modularized Circuit Boards that each serves a special purpose like motor control, current measurements, or battery protection. These modules can be stacked and placed on a tiny Computer like an Arduino or Raspberry Pi. Several of these stacks will control the sub-assemblies of the rover. This way we can individually test single assemblies like the arm without the whole rover. This is especially useful in a situation where the team cannot meet very often in person.
One very important aspect of a Mars-Rover is that it… well… can DO things. Therefore, the rover needs motors to move itself, its arm, its cameras, and its tools. For this, we developed Motion Controller Modules that control our overall 21 stepper and eight BLDC motors. The stepper motors use two different modules depending on their power consumption while the BLDC motors have the biggest task of moving the whole rover.
All these modules utilize Trinamic drivers as their core component. Their well-documented, efficient, and easy-to-use ICs make implementation and development as fast as possible and saves us the trouble of fixing problems of self-developed solutions. It was no problem to design the modules based on their documentation and based on previous experiences we are happy to use their drivers.
