Docking for surface elements: design and simulation

This thesis aims at defining the most suitable docking solution for surface elements applications.The paper will go trough the state of art of the already existing technologies for soft & hard docking solutions between surface elements (i.e. manned rovers and surface habitats). This technologies are fundamental for safe exploration of Moon & Mars surface, when manned missions and outposts will be deployed. The focus of this thesis is the Moon, due to the already established Artemis missions. Previous work had found which would have been the best mechanical structure to provide the soft docking, what have been established is the Stewart platform which will be lately developed. The technical specifications of actuators, motors and sensors (which will not be deeply analyzed here) were examined and a suitable control architecture has been selected. At the end the final solution consists of a central control system, where an Arduino MEGA board is the master controller and the motors drivers (contained inside the linear actuators) are the slave elements. This structure is part of the Artemis framework which already exists. This work goes trough the electrical and mechanical implementation of the Stewart platform with a final Matlab ( Simulink ) simulation in order to prove the reliability and feasibility of the model for a future physical implementation.