Design of an embedded board for IDRA

Robotics is increasingly being employed in the most diverse fields nowadays. Among them, space is one of the most suited for robots, since they are able to perform various tasks that humans would otherwise carry out, putting them at great risk. The space environment brings many hazards into play, for instance, radiations and a lack of atmosphere. These effects, along with many others, create new challenges in the design of robots. Concerning robotics in space, at Politecnico di Torino, in DIMEAS, the IDRA project is being developed. This project is currently prototyping a soft, inflatable robot to be used on board satellites for various purposes. The robot is composed of rigid, electrically actuated joints, held together by inflatable links, that allow the structure to change its dimensions for storage. The thesis aims to analyse, design, and test various electronic circuits that could be suitable for the space environment, in particular topologies that can work both on Earth and in space with minimal modifications to the design. These circuits will then be assembled inside the IDRA links, to control their deployment and retraction. Moreover, monitoring functions are added through the use of sensors, in order to ensure that the air pressure inside the chamber is sufficient to keep it inflated, while also being low enough to avoid physical damage. Temperature control ensures that all components inside the chamber work within safety temperature margins and eventually block their operation in case of overheating. To carry out this task, a state of the art is compiled by consulting the ECSS documents, to understand how electronic circuits are designed for space conditions, along with literature, to have a starting point on the most used control circuitry in industry. Then, based on research, previous work and some changes to fulfil the specific requirements of the project, the first circuit prototypes are created using discrete components and breadboards. When their functioning is tested, the designs are transferred to a more permanent solution, PCBs. Each circuit is then tested, both alone and with the others, to ensure that each can function properly and that the whole assembly is suitable for the application. Finally, tests under thermovacuum conditions are performed to assess the correct functioning of the sensors inside the chamber, since they need to operate properly when no atmosphere is present. All of the developed electronics remains outside the thermovacuum chamber for these tests, as the vacuum-compatible iteration is still under development and its potential modifications will be carried out following the results of these first tests. All the tests are performed while logging data taken from each sensor, to allow data analysis, fundamental to understand what should be modified and what works properly. After testing, the modifications and future additions can be discussed, by assessing what worked and what can be improved. In particular, the PCBs must be redesigned to fit inside the chamber, and their components substituted with space-grade parts, but overall the designed circuits are suitable for the predetermined goal.