• Robotic arm
• PCB design
• Payload Integration
• MRCP Rover chassis
• DLR LIBS Spectrometer

Rovers for extra-terrestrial missions provide an added advantage over an orbiter enabling opportunities to investigate and understand various characteristics of planetary bodies such as their surface composition, the existence of water, organic compounds, and other elements by performing in-situ measurements and analyses. Being a sophisticated and remotely accessible mechanism, a robotic arm can be an invaluable component of the rover, providing necessary actuation for flexible measurements and hosting mission-critical systems. If powered sufficiently with advanced control systems, it could carry scientific and experimental instruments and place them next to a target subject. One such instrument that can exploit this opportunity is the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS). A LIBS Spectrometer is a high-energy pulsed laser that is directed at the target sample, ablating a small piece of it that emits radiation. This spectrum provides a qualitative analysis of the collected sample.

The goal of the project is to complete the necessary development work for the integration and functioning of the LIBS spectrometer as a payload instrument on a six-wheeled Modular Rover Chassis Platform (MRCP) developed by the Institute of Space Systems (IRS), Stuttgart. LIBS identifies and measures the chemical and molecular composition of surface samples and is developed at the Institute for Optical Sensor Systems of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The aim of the thesis is to integrate and verify the operation of the LIBS spectrometer on the MRCP, which is a continuation work of a master thesis with similar motivation and mainly focuses on the integration of the instrument mechanism (robotic arm) with emphasis on the design of its electrical subsystem and software development. The commissioning and testing of the integrated robotic arm with its electronic box (E-Box) on the test stand have been performed. The integration of the arm on the rover is a part of the future work under the consultation of the DLR Institute for Optical Systems in Berlin Adlershof.

After providing a brief introduction on the functioning of the LIBS spectrometer and robotic arm the thesis progresses to the electrical design required for the operation of the instrument mechanism and interface with the rover. The design of the E-Box has been done considering the influence of the variation in the CG of the rover as it could hinder the operation of the arm and payload. On the completion of E-Box design, assembly components of the robotic arm and instrument mounts have been designed and 3D printed, and eventually, the assembly has been done on the test bench for testing and verification.

Finally, the work is concluded with the preliminary study of software architecture needed to control the robotic arm system which was primarily done by using the robot operating system 2 (ROS 2) and Python while the design of the E-Box and re-manufactured parts has been carried out by using CREO Parametric 6.0. Finally, the design of the printed circuit board (PCB) has been done by using EasyEDA.