An integrative design for space manipulator joint

The space manipulators are widely used in space exploration tasks and the technology develops quickly as well. The integrative space joint design is one of the key technologies of space manipulator. It can realize small volume, light weight, high performance by designing the motor, control module, driver module, measure module and thermal control module as a whole. This paper shows a kind of integrative design for space joint which can realize dual-redundancy detection for motor rotor and joint positions and can also improve position detection precision and noise immunity by difference principle. In addition, the isothermal design is adopted at joint thermal control. Finally, the experimental data is shown to prove the joint has excellent performance to meet the requirement of space manipulator.