Development Of Pneumatic Manipulator For EVA Spacesuit Simulation Test

The research and development of EVA(extra vehicular activity)spacesuit is one of the most important things in the manned space flight project.To examine the quality and reliability of EVA spacesuit,it would be placed in the hypobaric chamber and repeatedly tested under the simulative space environment.The regulators and switches also need testing and regulating.While,under the simulative space environment,people have no access to EVA spacesuit.Pneumatic manipulator needs taking people's place to work in the hypobaric chamber.There are a wide range of regulators and switches on EVA suits to choose and their layouts are compact.In order to solve these problems,this thesis comes up with a full pneumatic point-to-point control plan that uses paralleled multi-cylinders to achieve one-to-one control of the switches via analyzing the functions of all kind of switches and studying the plans on how to use testing devices to test EVA suits.This pneumatic point-to-point control plan can test many regulators and switches on EVA suits.Whether it can imitate the human hands' actions on controlling actuators in cabin or not is the key to the reliability test of regulators and switches on EVA suits.Due to high requirements on test devices' positioning accuracy and the need to imitate human hands on controlling all switches,this article will give some advice on type selection of some standard parts,such as cylinder,solenoid valve,speed valve and air pipe,and meanwhile,it designs and develops some non-standard parts,including cylinder racks,temperature control valve and various clamping devices,and has finished the 3D modeling,the design and manufacture of testing devices.To achieve remote control,this thesis designs an electronic control system to monitor these devices.This system can finish the manufacturing and electrical connection of electric cabinet,and can also weld and test part cables and aviation plugs in flanges.The manipulator was designed based on pneumatic technology and combied step motor,the devices of the manipulator was designed according to it's track requirement.The pneumatic system was designed and calculated,and all conponents was selected for the equipment.And finally,an operation manual and trouble shooting manual was compiled based on the system technology.