Tag: 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica

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1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica Design and Building Diary

The Stowed Pose of the Legs, Rocker and Bogie, of the 1:2 Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica

When the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover was on the journey to the Red Planet Mars, its legs, Rocker and Bogie, and wheels were stowed in a particular pose so as to minimize the general size of the Perseverance Rover. which allows it to be housed inside the spacecraft.

Perseverance rover descent stage
Perseverance rover descent stage
Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover in the spacecraft
Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover in the spacecraft

About 12 seconds before TD (touchdown), around 66 feet (20 meters) above the Martian surface, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover unstowed its and then locking its legs and wheels into landing position.

Our 1:2 Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica doesn’t have a mechanism to realize the automatic change between the stowed and the unstowed poses. However, you can switch between the two poses manually.

The following screenshot shows how the stowed pose of our 1:2 Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica looks like in the 3D industrial design software.

Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica legs Rocker Bogie Stowed
Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica legs Rocker Bogie Stowed
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1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica Design and Building Diary

“Differential-Rocker-Bogie” – The Suspension System of the 1:2 Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica’s Design is completed

The suspension system of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover is one of its most interesting structures. It uses mechanical leverage to spread the weight of the rover to each of the Perseverance Rover’s wheels relatively equally. This ingenious structure also minimizes the tilt of the Perseverance Rover when it drives over uneven terrain.
Among the three components, 

“Differential-Rocker-Bogie”, of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s suspension system, the most strategic one is the differential. Without it, the weight cannot pass to the other side forcefully. Therefore, in some situations, the three wheels on one side have to bear a major proportion of the weight of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover. While with the “Differential”, the burden is shared on both sides forcefully.

While the connections of all the joints of the “Differential-Rocker-Bogie”  suspension system are purely mechanical, the steering of the two front wheels and two rear wheels are realized by motors. This arrangement allows the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover to turn a full 360 degrees in place. Also, there is a driving motor for each of the six wheels at the terminals of the suspension structure. 

Since we are building our 1:2 Mars Perseverance Rover Replica as a moveable and motorized replica, all the mechanical structures of the suspension system must be made exactly the same as the real Mars rover. And meanwhile, the structure must be strong enough to withstand the weight of the Mars Rover Perseverance replica. The steering motors and driving motors of our 1:2 Mars Perseverance Rover replica allows it to steer and drive exactly the same as the real Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover.

Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica Rocker Bogie leg 1
Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica Rocker Bogie leg 1
Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica Rocker Bogie leg 2
Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica Rocker Bogie leg 2
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1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica Design and Building Diary

The Robotic Arm of the 1:2 Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica’s Design is completed

The robotic arm and the turret at its front end is one of the most complicated components in the Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance.

It requires five motors to realize its five degrees of freedom.

In the real Perseverance Rover, the turret is like a hand that carries cameras, analyzers for on-site studying and sample catching. The scientific tools mounted on the turret are SHERLOC and WATSON and PIXL.

In our 1:2 Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica, all the parts are rebuilt in a ultra-detailed way.

The following 7 screenshots are from the 3D model we are building. The next step is to use advanced techniques to build them in the physical world. Stay tuned!

Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 1
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 1
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 2
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 2
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 3
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 3
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 4
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 4
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 5
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 5
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 6
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 6
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 7
Mars Rover 2020 Perseverance Replica Robotic Arm Turret Drill 7
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1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica Design and Building Diary

Building the Structure for the Drive Motor, the Wheel Fork, and the Steering Motor for the 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica

The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover has six wheels, and each of them is connected to a stand-alone drive motor via the axle. And each of the front two wheels and the back two wheels is also connected to a stand-alone steering motor via a C shape structure called the wheel fork. Obviously, since the two middle wheels do not have steering motors connected, there are no C-shape wheel forks involved in the two middle wheels.

To test our design of the 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica, we 3D printed a prototype first including the structures for the drive motor, the wheel fork, and the steering motor for one wheel of our Perseverance Mars Rover Replica because the cost of 3D printing is much lower than machining, not just the material cost but the processing cost as well, and what’s more, 3D printing is much faster than machining. So if we find any design mistake when building the prototype, we can adjust the 3D design without wasting too much money. Of course, small issues don’t necessarily require re-3D-printing immediately, we can use all kinds of tools to do the fix in the physical world so that we won’t be stopped by these small issues.

After we complete the 3D printed prototype test and the design changes, which obviously may involve more than one round, we then proceed to build the final aluminum version wheel structure of the 1:2 Mars Perseverance Rover replica.

As you can see in the video above, all the 3D-printed parts are perfectly assembled. Some of the parts are already now machined with aluminum alloy.  Once we build the control PCB for the steering motor and drive motor, we will be able to activate the wheel via the code running in microchips.

We are now moving on to build the mast of the 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica.

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1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica Design and Building Diary

Building and Testing the Wheel Skeleton of the Mars Perseverance Rover Replica

We have completed the machining of the wheel spokes of the 1:2 Mars Perseverance Rover replica. All the parts are assembled. It is really exciting to hold the assembled wheel skeleton in my hands and feel its weight. Although the structure successfully passed the computer simulations, we still anticipated seeing its bearing ability in the physical world.

We designed a special tool to test the entire wheel of the 1:2 Mars Perseverance Rover replica, including the steering motor structure, the ‘C’ shape connection structure, the wheel hub, and the spokes. In this stage, we only completed the wheel skeleton which is composed of the wheel hub, and the spokes so we cannot take advantage of that special tool to do the test. However, we did find a very primitive but effective way to test the strength of the wheel skeleton of the Perseverance Mars rover replica.

We were worrying whether this skeleton structure can bear the weight of the entire Perseverance Mars rover replica so it’s really nice to see the structure is STRONG. LOL.

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1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica Design and Building Diary

1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica

After doing some tests in the physical world, we decided to upgrade the size of the Perseverance Mars Rover Replica from 1:3 to 1:2, and therefore the static Perseverance Mars Rover replica will be upgraded from 1:4 to 1:3.

The original dimensions of the body box of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover are as follows.

  • Length 10 feet (3 meters)
  • Width 9 feet (2.7 meters)
  • Height 7 feet (2.2 meters)

Therefore, the dimensions of the body box of the 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica are as follows.

  • Length 5 feet (1.5 meters)
  • Width 4 feet 6 inches (1.35 meters)
  • Height 3 feet 6 inches (1.1 meters)
Mars Perseverance Rover Replica ratio size compare
Mars Perseverance Rover Replica ratio size compare
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Science Instrument of Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

PIXL of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Part 2

The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s sensor assembly is a white box connected to the turret of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s robotic arm by 6 legs that are grouped in three pairs. The sensor assembly consists of the instrument to fire and detect X-ray, to take photos, and to measure how the target is from the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover. Inside of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s sensor assembly, there is a Micro-Context Camera or MCC, There are a ring of LEDs on the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s sensor assembly, called the Flood Light Illuminators (FLI), which helps with illuminating the target area for the MCC at night. There is another device called structured light illuminators (SLI) which helps with the measuring by projecting arrays of laser dots onto the target. So the MCC only takes context photos, but also takes photos of the laser dot arrays from the SLI). Although the PIXL assembly of our 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover replica does not have the X-ray, micro-context camera, or the measuring feature, we will replicate their appearance structure. 

The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s body unit electronics (BUE) has a weight of 3 kg or 6.6 lbs, and the base has a length of 1.41 m or 55 inches, and a width of 1m, or 39 inches. The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s BUE is not located in the sensor assembly on the turret, but instead, the BUE is inside of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s body. The BUE is connected with the sensor assembly by a cable and connector combination which in total has a length of 1.91 meters. The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s BUE is made of aluminum 6061 and inside of the BUE are the main electronic controls: the power board, the interface board, the control board, and the analog board. The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s BUE is a sophisticated structure, but since it is inside of the rover’s body, you cannot really see it unless you open up the rover’s body. Therefore, we might replicate the BUE after the parts on our Perseverance Mars Rover Replica you can see are replicated, and again, our Perseverance Mars Rover Replica‘s PIXL’s BUE will have functions that the real Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover has, but only the appearance structure. 

The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s calibration target has two purposes. The first purpose is to calibrate the X-ray subsystem, and the second purpose is to help with the physical alignment of the X-ray beam – MCC and SLI. The dimension of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s calibration target is 39mm (1.53 inches) by 30mm (1.18 inches) by 8mm (0.31 inches) and has a weight of 10g or 0.35oz. The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s calibration target has the following 6 features:

  1. A disk of PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) for making sure the stability of the X-ray source spectrum and X-ray detection.
  2. A USGS (United States Geological Survey) basaltic standard BHVO-2 in glass form. It was made by melting and rapidly quenching power BHVO-2, and this was happening in a platinum boat.
  3. A NIST-610 glass disk. NIST is short for the National Institute of Standards and Technology).
    4. A mineral scapolite disk which was epoxied on The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s calibration target by the PIXL team.
  4.  A glass disk in the center of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s calibration target. It has a metal cross on top where one line is a chromium and the other line is nickel. It is for calibrating the location of the X-ray beam and the SLI laser beams.
  5. Black dots which are distributed randomly on the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s calibration target plates, where the top plate is 5mm (0.2 inches) higher than the lower plate. The dots are for calibrating the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s sensor head location.

Our 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover replica will also replicate this calibration target but most likely not with the materials that the real Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL’s calibration target uses. We will utilize what we can get our hands on and definitely will replicate the appearance structure like the real one. But naturally, since our Perseverance Mars Rover replica‘s PIXL does not work like the real PIXL, it will not need to calibrate. 

The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL will collect a huge amount of information and the operating hours often will go up to 16 hours. Therefore, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s PIXL also has to work at night when the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover is resting. Although our Mars Rover replica does not process any data or information, you can use whenever you like with the remote, 

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Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Structure Components Functions Science Instrument of Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

PIXL of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Part 1

The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover‘s PIXL is short for the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, and it is located on the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover‘s turret at the end of its robotic arm.

There are 3 main components of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover‘s PIXL: the sensor assembly, the body unit electronics (BUE), and the PXL calibration target. [PIXL of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Part 2] will go into details about them. The 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica we are building will also replicate the appearance structure of these three components.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover‘s PIXL is a micro-focus X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. It will shoot a 120 µm diameter X-ray beam to the targeted site and induce X-ray fluorescence on the rock surface. Then PIXL will measure the target surface’s chemical structure at a sub-millimeter level to analyze the detailed composition of the rock, and this can be done in just 10 seconds. The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover‘s PIXL exams the rock and soil autonomously without having to check with Earth each time it runs a scan, so it can record a hyperspectral map of thousands of measured points within hours. The elements that the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover‘s PIXL can detect are Na, Mg, Al, Si, P, S, Cl, K, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Br, Rb, Sr, Y, Ga, Ge, As, Zr, Rb, Sr, Y, and Zr. With this information, scientists will be able to search for evidence or signs of ancient Martian microbial life. The PIXL instrument for our 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica will not actually have these functions, but we will proportionally replicate it on our Mars Rover Replica‘s motorized robotic arm.

PIXL is put on the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover for 3 reasons. The first is to analyze the past chemical composition of the Martian terrain, if the planet was habitable, and if the rocks have the potential to store signs of life. The second reason is to find if there was ever life and if there is any potential for other types of lives. The third reason is to determine what samples are worth collecting and potentially returning to Earth.

There are small motors on the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover‘s PIXL, which makes it like a 6-legged robot. With many degrees of freedom, the X-ray beam can move very easily just like a human hand controls a laser pointer. Our Perseverance Mars Rover Replica will perfectly replicate the robotic legs so they will move like and provide the same mobility to the PIXL on our Mars Rover replica just like the real one on the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.