Rocket-Propelled Miniature Robot for Planetary Exploration (with Estes motors)

[Winston]

Prototypes use Estes motors:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton...led-miniature-robot-for-planetary-exploration

The 450-gram robot consists of a housing with batteries and sensors, a reaction wheel (also inside the housing), a primary solid-fuel rocket engine (an Estes C11 with a total impulse of 10 newton-seconds), and two smaller opposing thrust motors. The robot is mounted on an angled rail and when it’s time to fly, it spins up its reaction wheel and sets off the primary rocket. The rocket launches the robot on a parabolic trajectory with a maximum range, in Earth gravity, of up to about 30 meters, which would increase to about 200 meters under lunar gravity.

“Distance Control of Rocket-propelled Miniature Exploration Robot,” by Hiroki Kato, Nobutaka Tanishima, Keiichi Yanagase, Toshimichi Tsumaki, and Shinji Mitani from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), was presented at ICRA 2017 in Singapore

Distance Control of Rocket-propelled Miniature Exploration Robot

[video=youtube;Cse1tWrt6fI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cse1tWrt6fI[/video]

 

[rstaff3]

Duplicate post. This would be fun to try a simplified if you had access to a suitable motor and flywheel and was willing to risk a timer to ignite the braking motors.

 

[Winston]

Duplicate post. This would be fun to try a simplified if you had access to a suitable motor and flywheel and was willing to risk a timer to ignite the braking motors.

Not the same thing exactly, but still retrorocket oriented - a triad of outward angled A10P motors at the the drogue chute shroud line / shock cord attachment point to slow to a stop at (a clear of flammables) ground level the rapid downward descent of an appropriately sized rocket, appropriately sized considering the A10 motors used. I suggested one of the cheap ultrasonic ranging modules previously in another thread, but I just discovered this LIDAR ranging chip, good to 2m which should be adequate. Much more compact and robust than the ultrasonic modules and claims to work fine in high IR (outdoor) environments:

VL53L0X - World's smallest Time-of-Flight (ToF) ranging sensor

https://www.st.com/en/imaging-and-photonics-solutions/vl53l0x.html

VL53L0X Time-of-Flight Distance Sensor Breakout GY-VL53L0XV2 Module for Arduino

https://www.ebay.com/itm/VL53L0X-Ti...GY-VL53L0XV2-Module-for-Arduino-/201718280643

[video=youtube;4uGfOppQD_g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uGfOppQD_g[/video]

 

[rstaff3]

Cool stuff.