MECHANICAL DESIGN AND CONTROL OF DEPLOYABLE POINTING MECHANISM DEVELOPED FOR LUNAR MICROSATELLITE APPLICATIONS

The aim of this thesis consists in the design of a pointing mechanism for a High gain antenna used for a lunar-terrestrial telecommunication satellite constellation. The pointing structure is based on the Canfield joint mechanism since the antenna needs to point in any direction over a hemisphere, and at the same time present a compact stowed configuration. This system will allow small satellites, like microsatellites, to have additional Degree of freedom (DOF) to handle complex missions previously manageable just by big satellites. The main focus is to design a platform manipulator compact, cheap to produce, reliably able to guarantee the pointing characteristics, and easily mass-produced for constellation purposes. The design was guided through a parametric MATLAB code to allow the kinematic and dynamical analysis to bring changes to the geometry of the structure obtaining the optimized dimensions for the specific application. A bio-inspired design is obtained able to guarantee mechanical protection in the case of a controller failure and with great workspace robustness and maneuverability.