Monthly Archives: December 2008
Motor control by FPGA
Motor control by FPGA
Seven brushless motors drive the robot and operate cameras because brushed motors would fail in the lunar environment. Brushed control wouldn’t do, but brushless control could burden the flight computer.
Field-Programmable-Gate-Arrays are the right intermediary to offload computer cycles while reliably controlling the motors. Brushless motor control is underway on commercial development boards before porting to flight hardware.
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| From AstroboticBlogPhotos |
Beam testing
Beam testing
This composite beam failed intentionally during testing. The carbon sheathing delaminated from its honeycomb core. The test loads a simply-supported beam with two equal forces. The result is moment without shear at the center and shear without moment at the end. This is a standard means for evaluating beam performance.
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| From AstroboticBlogPhotos |
