Design and Control of a 6-DOF Robotic Manipulator for Rover Servicing Tasks

Equipment-servicing missions demand a manipulator that is both dexterous and lightweight enough for a mobile rover platform. We describe the mechanical design and control architecture of a six-degree-of-freedom robotic arm developed for university rover competitions. The design balances payload capacity, reach, and mass through a hybrid actuation scheme and a modular end-effector. A hierarchical controller combines inverse-kinematics-based trajectory generation with compliant force control for delicate panel and switch operations. Bench and field evaluations show repeatable manipulation of competition-representative interface boards.