Omni-wheel-based spherical support structure and spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform

Abstract

The omnidirectional wheel-based ball supporting structure and spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform solve the problem that the existing supporting structure cannot make the ball freely rotate at a fixed position, and belong to the field of aerospace popular science equipment.The ball supporting structure comprises three supporting legs, the three supporting legs are circumferentially distributed, the central angle between adjacent two supporting legs is 120 DEG, an omnidirectional wheel is arranged on each supporting leg, and the ball structure is placed on the omnidirectional wheels of the three supporting legs.The application further provides a ball structure, specifically a spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform, which comprises a spherical shell, a framework structure, a control system and three flywheel actuators, the framework structure is a circumscribed sphere of a cube; the framework structure is fixed on the inner wall of the spherical shell; the control system and the flywheel actuators are located inside the framework structure, the three flywheel actuators are arranged at the central positions of the three fork-shaped elements corresponding to the three vertices, and the control system is distributed at the central positions of the fork-shaped elements corresponding to the other three vertices.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The invention relates to a spherical support structure based on omnidirectional wheels and belongs to the field of aerospace science popularization equipment. Background Art

[0002] An omnidirectional wheel is a specially designed wheel. Compared to traditional wheels, it typically consists of multiple spokes, each equipped with a small wheel or ball bearing. The rotation of these small wheels or balls enables the wheel to generate motion in any direction. The omnidirectional wheel design allows robots or vehicles to move horizontally, rotate, or even diagonally in confined spaces without requiring complex turning maneuvers.

[0003] Omnidirectional wheels have a wide range of applications, including industrial automation, indoor navigation, service robots, medical equipment, and specialized transportation equipment. Their advantage lies in their ability to achieve highly flexible motion control, making them suitable for scenarios requiring frequent changes of direction or movement within confined spaces.

[0004] With the development of science and technology and the need for popular science, people need a mechanism that can fix a sphere in one position and allow the sphere to rotate freely in a fixed position to meet the needs of popular science, education and physical experiments of attitude control systems. Summary of the Invention

[0005] In order to solve the problem that the existing support structure cannot enable the sphere to rotate freely at a fixed position, the present invention provides a sphere support structure based on omnidirectional wheels.

[0006] The present invention provides a spherical support structure based on an omnidirectional wheel, comprising three support legs; the three support legs are distributed in a circle, and the central angle between two adjacent support legs is 120°;

[0007] Each supporting leg is provided with an omnidirectional wheel; the spherical structure is placed on the omnidirectional wheels of the three supporting legs.

[0008] Preferably, the support structure includes a base plate, and three support legs are fixed on the base plate in a circumferential distribution.

[0009] The present invention also provides a spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform, comprising a spherical structure and a spherical support structure, wherein the spherical structure comprises a spherical shell, a skeleton structure, a control system, three flywheel actuators, and the skeleton structure comprises six fork-shaped elements and eight disc-shaped elements;

[0010] Eight disc-shaped elements are respectively located at the eight vertices of the cube, and six fork-shaped elements are respectively located in the six faces of the cube. Each fork-shaped element has four prongs, and each disc-shaped element is fixedly connected to four adjacent prongs to form the skeleton structure, which is the circumscribed sphere of the cube.

[0011] The skeleton structure is fixed to the inner wall of the spherical shell;

[0012] The control system is located inside the skeleton structure. The center positions of the six fork-shaped elements are used to fix the load. The three flywheel actuators are set at the center positions of the three faces corresponding to the fork-shaped elements at the same vertex; the control system is distributed at the center positions of the other three faces corresponding to the fork-shaped elements.

[0013] Preferably, the control system includes a battery, a drive module and a main control board, which are respectively arranged at the center position of a fork-shaped element on a surface. The battery supplies power to the drive module, the main control board and three flywheel actuators. The main control board is used to control the drive module, and the drive module is used to drive the three flywheel actuators.

[0014] Preferably, the driving module includes three driving plates for driving three flywheel actuators respectively.

[0015] Preferably, three driving plates are stacked in a tower-like manner and installed at the center of the corresponding fork-shaped elements.

[0016] Preferably, each flywheel actuator comprises a brushless motor, a reaction flywheel and a magnetic encoder;

[0017] The brushless motor drives the reaction flywheel to rotate, generating a reaction torque. The magnetic encoder collects the speed information of the brushless motor and sends it to the driver board.

[0018] Preferably, the spherical shell is made of acrylic material.

[0019] Preferably, the skeleton structure is produced by 3D printing.

[0020] Preferably, the experimental platform further comprises a balancing block, which is fixed on the inner wall of the acrylic spherical shell so that the position error between the center of gravity of the experimental platform and the center of the circumscribed sphere is within a set range.

[0021] The beneficial effects of the present invention are that the present invention can place a spherical device on the support structure and allow it to rotate freely during display. For example, a spherical simulator for spacecraft attitude control can be placed on the support structure to complete an attitude control experiment at a fixed position on the desktop. For another example, a model of the earth is placed on the support structure. Unlike traditional globes that can only rotate around a fixed axis, the new globe formed can rotate freely in all directions on the support structure. The present invention has low cost, small footprint, and a wide range of applications; it also has a strong sense of science fiction, is convenient for popular science displays, and enhances user experience. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0022] Figure 1 This is a structural model diagram of a single supporting leg;

[0023] Figure 2It is the structural model diagram of the overall support frame;

[0024] Figure 3 This is a schematic diagram of the model of the support frame supporting the sphere;

[0025] Figure 4 It is a three-dimensional structural diagram of the skeleton structure of the present invention;

[0026] Figure 5 It is an oblique diagonal view of the skeleton structure of the present invention;

[0027] Figure 6 is a front view of the skeleton structure of the present invention;

[0028] Figure 7 It is an exploded view of the skeleton structure of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0029] The following will clearly and completely describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the described embodiments are only part of the embodiments of the present invention, not all of the embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in this field without making any creative efforts shall fall within the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0030] It should be noted that, in the absence of conflict, the embodiments of the present invention and the features in the embodiments may be combined with each other.

[0031] The present invention will be further described below with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments, but they are not intended to limit the present invention.

[0032] like Figures 1 to 3 As shown, the spherical support structure based on the omnidirectional wheel of this embodiment includes three support legs; the three support legs are distributed in a circle, and the central angle between two adjacent support legs is 120°;

[0033] Each supporting leg is provided with an omnidirectional wheel; the spherical structure is placed on the omnidirectional wheels of the three supporting legs.

[0034] The omnidirectional wheels, arranged at 120 degrees, support the spherical structure, allowing it to be fixed in a specific position on the table. The suspended omnidirectional wheels support the spherical structure, and because the spokes of the omnidirectional wheels are equipped with small wheels or balls, the spherical structure can rotate freely on the fixed omnidirectional wheels without being constrained by static friction.

[0035] The support structure of this embodiment includes a base plate, and three support legs are fixed on the base plate in a circumferential distribution. The base plate plays a fixing role, making the support structure more stable.

[0036] The spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform of this embodiment includes a spherical structure and a spherical support structure. The spherical structure includes a spherical shell, a skeleton structure, a control system and three flywheel actuators 4, 5, and 6. Figure 7 As shown, the skeleton structure includes six fork-like elements and eight disc-like elements;

[0037] Eight disc-shaped elements are respectively located at the eight vertices of the cube, and six fork-shaped elements are respectively located in the six faces of the cube. Each fork-shaped element has four prongs, and each disc-shaped element is connected to four adjacent prongs by bolts and nuts to form the skeleton structure, which is the circumscribed sphere of the cube.

[0038] The skeleton structure of this embodiment is as follows Figure 7 As shown, the skeleton structure is made by 3D printing and installed close to the inner wall of the acrylic spherical shell;

[0039] The control system is located inside the skeleton structure. The center positions of the six fork-shaped elements are used to fix the load. The three flywheel actuators 4, 5, and 6 are arranged at the center positions of the three faces corresponding to the fork-shaped elements at the same vertex; the control system is distributed at the center positions of the other three faces corresponding to the fork-shaped elements.

[0040] In this embodiment, the control system and flywheel actuator are fixed on the skeleton structure. The spherical structure is placed on the support structure, and the control system drives the three flywheel actuators 4, 5, and 6 to control the attitude rotation of the desktop-level spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform through reaction torque.

[0041] This embodiment is a low-cost desktop-level spherical three-axis stabilized spacecraft experimental platform, so as to complete the attitude control physical experiment of the three-axis stabilized spacecraft in a more popular scenario.

[0042] In this embodiment, the control system includes a battery 1, a drive module and a main control board 3, which are respectively arranged at the center position of a fork-shaped element on a surface. The battery 1 supplies power to the drive module, the main control board 3 and the three flywheel actuators 4, 5, and 6. The main control board 3 is used to control the drive module, and the drive module is used to drive the three flywheel actuators 4, 5, and 6. The skeleton structure of this embodiment has 6 positions where loads can be fixed, corresponding to the positions of the six faces of the cube. The experimental platform fixes the three flywheel actuators 4, 5, and 6 on three orthogonal faces, and fixes the control system on the other three faces. The spatial position relationship of the six fixed loads is as follows: Figure 5 、 Figure 6 shown.

[0043] The control system of this embodiment includes a battery 1, a drive board module and a main control board 3; wherein the drive module includes three drive boards 2, each drive board 2 drives a flywheel actuator, and the three drive boards 2 are installed in a tower stack at the center position of the corresponding fork-shaped element.

[0044] The drive board 2 of this embodiment is responsible for collecting motion instructions from the main control board 3 and completing the drive and speed control of the flywheel actuator;

[0045] In this embodiment, the main control board 3 is responsible for completing wireless communication, instruction parsing, attitude control and other functions; uses the complementary filtering method to perform attitude calculation to obtain real-time attitude information, and uses the PID algorithm to control the attitude of the spherical experimental platform.

[0046] Each flywheel actuator 6 includes a brushless motor, a reaction flywheel, and a magnetic encoder. The brushless motor drives the reaction flywheel, generating a reaction torque for posture control. The magnetic encoder collects motor speed information and assists the drive board 2 in completing motor speed control.

[0047] The experimental platform of this embodiment also includes a balance block, which is fixed on the inner wall of the acrylic spherical shell so that the position error between the center of gravity of the experimental platform and the center of the circumscribed sphere is within a set range to maintain a better control effect.

[0048] Although the present invention is described herein with reference to specific embodiments, it should be understood that these embodiments are merely illustrative of the principles and applications of the invention. It should be understood that many modifications may be made to the illustrative embodiments, and that other arrangements may be devised, without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. It should be understood that the various dependent claims and features described herein may be combined in ways other than those described in the original claims. It should also be understood that features described in conjunction with individual embodiments may be employed in conjunction with other described embodiments.

Claims

1. Spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform, characterized by: The experimental platform includes a spherical structure and a spherical support structure based on omnidirectional wheels. The spherical support structure based on omnidirectional wheels includes three support legs. The three support legs are distributed in a circle, and the central angle between two adjacent support legs is 120 degrees. Each support leg is provided with an omnidirectional wheel; the spherical structure is placed on the omnidirectional wheels of the three support legs; the spherical structure includes a spherical shell, a skeleton structure, a control system, three flywheel actuators, and the skeleton structure includes six fork-shaped elements and eight disc-shaped elements; Eight disc-shaped elements are respectively located at the eight vertices of the cube, and six fork-shaped elements are respectively located in the six faces of the cube. Each fork-shaped element has four prongs, and each disc-shaped element is fixedly connected to four adjacent prongs to form the skeleton structure, which is the circumscribed sphere of the cube. The skeleton structure is fixed to the inner wall of the spherical shell; The control system is located inside the skeleton structure. The center of the six fork-shaped elements is used to fix the load. The three flywheel actuators are set at the center of the three faces corresponding to the fork-shaped elements at the same vertex; the control system is distributed at the center of the other three faces corresponding to the fork-shaped elements. The control system includes a battery, a drive module, and a main control board, each of which is arranged at the center of a fork-shaped element on a surface. The battery supplies power to the drive module, the main control board, and the three flywheel actuators. The main control board is used to control the drive module, and the drive module is used to drive the three flywheel actuators. The driving module includes three driving plates for driving three flywheel actuators respectively; Each flywheel actuator includes a brushless motor, a reaction flywheel, and a magnetic encoder; The brushless motor drives the reaction flywheel to rotate, generating a reaction torque. The magnetic encoder collects the speed information of the brushless motor and sends it to the driver board.

2. The spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform according to claim 1, characterized in that: The three driving plates are stacked in a tower and mounted at the center of the corresponding fork-shaped elements.

3. The spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform according to claim 1, characterized in that: The spherical shell is made of acrylic material.

4. The spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform according to claim 1, characterized in that: The skeleton structure is manufactured by 3D printing.

5. The spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform according to claim 1, characterized in that: The experimental platform also includes a balance block, which is fixed on the inner wall of the acrylic spherical shell so that the position error between the center of gravity of the experimental platform and the center of the circumscribed sphere is within a set range.

6. The spherical three-axis spacecraft experimental platform according to claim 1, characterized in that: The supporting structure comprises a bottom plate, and three supporting legs are fixed on the bottom plate in a circumferential distribution.

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