Tech Briefs Magazine - October 2021 - MD-16

MOTION CONTROL CHANNEL
Sponsored by
Touchdown of NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover carrying Ewellix's planetary
roller screw. (Source: NASA)
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Analyzing Jellyfish-Like
Creatures to Understand
Our Neural Networks
Rice University engineers are
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toward understanding neural
networks in all living creatures.
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Hybrid Underwater
Robot Investigates
Ocean's 'Twilight Zone'
With an array of sensors and a
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AI Teaches Robot to
Learn to Walk
Artificial intelligence has done
more than teach a robot to walk;
it taught a robot to learn to walk,
researchers from Carnegie Mellon
and the University of California,
Berkeley report.
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learn-to-walk
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16
Cov
ToC
sample con tainers into a space where they are sealed and
stored.
Sealing the Samples
Ewellix's planetary roller screw is housed inside the sealing
station on the base of the rover and will generate the high
force required to hermetically seal the 43 sample tubes on
board. The rover has a small servo motor that drives the roller
screw nut. This rotational movement is converted into linear
displacement that pushes on a ram, which in turn presses the
seal inside the open end of the sample tube with extremely
precise force, speed, and position.
It was critical to save mass on the rover and Ewellix's roller
screw provided a tremendous amount of force load in a small
mechanism, making it an ideal component for load rating and
weight. Other benefits are long service life by design, high
reliability, and the ability to withstand frequent changes of
loading direction, high linear speed, and some amount of
contamination.
The planetary roller screw is a fully customized version of a
standard SR/HR planetary roller screw product. All parts and
materials were adapted for the unique conditions through
extensive analysis and testing. Adaptations include aerospacegrade
materials and heat-treatment operations provided by USbased
suppliers with aerospace certifications.
The customized planetary roller screw took several years to
develop, prototype, manufacture, and test, from concept to system
validation, where one of the final product samples was
selected for the mission. Extensive system testing, including
the roller screw, was performed at JPL.
Jean-Pierre Collognat, Project Lead and Business Development
Manager at Ewellix explained some of the challenges
of the project. " There were certainly some firsts for
us along the way due to challenging application conditions
and environment and the need to downsize our components
as much as possible to reduce space and weight, yet
still optimize the load rating and reliability. All materials
have to work at all times at extremely low temperatures;
hence all of the component's materials were subjected to
specific heat treatments. "
For more information, visit http://info.hotims.com/79418-316.
Motion Design, October 2021

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Tech Briefs Magazine - October 2021

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