Research On A Locking-Releasing Mechanism For Side-Loded Lunar Rover

With the continuous development and improvement of our deep space exploration technology, landing on the moon has become a very important and tangible goal for our nation. Due to its saving much space to store precision instruments and equipments, avoiding the higher location of the centroid of a lunar lander, and less-limited by dimensions and structures of a lunar lander, side-loaded lunar rover gradually attracted much attention. As the main part of a lunar lander and the bridge of a lunar rover and the moon ground, the locking-releasing mechanism whose performance is determined to safety of the lunar rover, actually is vital for the lunar lander.With consideration of the requirements such as installation location, the complexity of the structure and quality of the mechanism, a design project for the locking-releasing mechanism was accepted; meanwhile, the specific structures were designed. The deformation of the main parts of the locking-releasing mechanism was analyzed by using ANSYS software.According to the metamorphic process of the locking-releasing mechanism, analysis on topological configurations was carried out by topological structures, which theoretically confirmed that the feasibility of deployment of the locking-releasing mechanism. Based on the low-numbered arrays for multibody, kinematic model was established through homogeneous transformation matrix.The kinematic analysis and simulation by ADAMS identified the feasibility of the panels deployment in orders, and the relative angles between panels were obtained.With regarding to dynamic analysis, in terms of the characteristic that different links take part in motion in different stages, dynamic models were acquired both without and with obliquity, and then were solved by software. Finally, parameter curves for dynamic features of the locking-releasing mechanism were obtained .Actually, after analysis of the main factors such as the force provided by the thrusters, the stiffness of torque springs between panels and spring damper, and the obliquity of the ground where the lander lands, a series of ideal parameters were acquired for the locking-releasing mechanism both without and with obliquity.