Theoretical and Experimental Evaluation on Specific Stiffness of a Integrally-Shaped Lightweight Honeycomb Robotic Arm

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel robotic arm for astronautical development by using honeycomb structure. Space robotic arm should possess lightweight, highrigidity, and compact. Honeycomb structure that is used mainly for large panels is one of such lightweight and highrigidity material. In this study, Honeycomb structure is introduced to realize compact and lightweight arm. To avoid the influence of adherence, the experimental specimens are integrally shaped by using 3D printer. Theoretical and experimental evaluation of the integrally shaped honeycomb arm is carried out. Comparison with SRMS (Canada arm), the partial superiority of the presented honeycomb arm is confirmed. Besides, the integral shaping using 3D printer is confirmed to be effective to avoid the influence of adherence.