bubble-bot

The Skywalker project is the design and simulation of a drone able to work in micro gravity.

After running several simulation tests, we have defined the shape of the drone to be spherical, this due to its facility to manipulation and to contrarest the collision events that may occur inside the space module.

We have set the disposition of the propellers taking in consideration the Euler angles for axis orientation. The amount of propellers will be as follows, three in each axis and an extra one for the displacement in one of the axis..

To define a stable algorithm, we took in consideration the angular momentum variation, as for every increase of its value, we switch propellers, in order to reach an ideal threshold where the drone can be stable.

In terms of energy, our propellers are low power XXD A2212 1000KV Brushless motors that wont require a big amount of energy, therefore our rechargable battery is not heavy. Either way, the possibility to add solar panels to the body is open, in case of adding an auxiliar battery for extra time duties.

The materials proposed for the spherical body is Expanded Polystyrene EPS and for the rotor shafts, Carbon Fiber. The Polystyrene is very light and it is a perfect isolating material. The Carbon Fiber has a light density and it is strong enought for torsion and flexion, assuring a long life period to the propellers.

For the mechanical claw required to grab tools inside the space module, we recommend a basic three-fingers claw, its disposition should be perpendicular to the axis with two propellers, for the displacement.

The dimensions of our drone are below the diameter of 40 cm and its weight is almost 2.5 Kg. The disposition of the rotors will prevent accidents and any kind of contact with other elements floating in the space module.

Our complete work can be viewed in more detail at:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuHi44HIo4TYOhIVmk1pL3qjV0VGmdkAG

At the RESOURCE links you can watch detailed simulations of our stabilization algorithm and the CAD design. We appreciate your time for reading our description!

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