Canada’s Right arm

randomproject — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:12:30 +0000

I’ll start off by showing you the “Canadarm”.

Canada’s most famous robotic and technological achievement, the “Canadarm” made it in space on November 13, 1981. The $110-million was largely carried out by the National Research Council of Canada.

The arm first flew in November 1981 on the second space shuttle flight and performed well, exceeding all design goals. It was declared operational one year later, after 3 successful test flights. Since it first flew, Canadarm has become an important symbol of Canadian prowess in technological fields.

This technology is a remote manipulator attached on a shuttle, or the “Canadarm” is used to deploy, capture and repair satellites from a space shuttle. It can also position astronauts, maintaining equipment and move cargo.

The 15.2m arm functions like a human arm, it has 6 joints altogether, 2 at its shoulder, 1 on the elbow and 3 at its wrist. Each joint is also powered by a optically, commutated brushless DC motor driven by a specially designed servo-power amplifier

This technology can lift up to 30 tonnes in weight in space while being monitored and operated from an indoor shuttle flight deck and it can accurately place objects by 5cm. The wrist of the arm has a “eye” which is a camera that is monitored by a astronaut in the indoor flight deck.

The demanding strength requirements and stiffness must include Aerospace materials such as titanium, stainless steel and ultra-high modulus of graphite epoxy. For cover harsh conditions the arm is entirely covered with a multilayer insulation system, consisting of alternate layers of goldized kapton, dacron scrim cloth and a beta cloth (fibre glass) outer covering. In extremely cold conditions, thermostatically controlled electric heaters protect critical electronics.

The Canadarm is designed to have a minimum lifetime of 10 years and to used up for at least 100 space missions.

The Canadarm is also affiliated with a number of Space agency’s such as NASA.

The movement of this structure is the following :

Length	15.2 m (50 ft.)
Diameter	38 cm (15 in.)
Weight on Earth	410 kg (905 lbs.)
Speed of movement	- unloaded: 60 cm a second - loaded: 6 cm a second
Upper and lower arm booms	Carbon composite material
Wrist joint	Three degrees of movement
Elbow joint	One degree of movement
Shoulder joint	Two degrees of movement
Translational hand controller	Right, up, down forward, and backward movement of the arm
Rotational hand controller	Controls the pitch, roll, and yaw of the arm

I think there are no negative points of the Canadarm , It is purely a Canadian technology and has made moving objects in space place to place more easier.

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Please comment and suggest additional information.

Canadarm-1, 2 & Dextre

Canada’s Right arm