The Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities in Russia is a serious candidate in the space race, constantly looking for innovation and newer technology in order to get ahead. One of their revolutionary projects is Fedor.
He looks like he just landed from a science fiction movie, he can drive a car and even do exercise but Fedor the humanoid robot has a serious mission ahead. He will be spending 10 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS) learning how to assist astronauts and perfecting his skills in a low gravity environment.
The 1.80 meters tall and 160 kg humanoid has 23 Gold Twitters of Elmo’s Miniature servo drives controlling his different joints.
Since fitting that many drives in one humanoid can be challenging, Elmo’s Gold Twitters were chosen for their ability to come in a large variety of housings or without housing at all, as well as numerous connecting options. This allowed for one single kind of drive to be implemented inside 23 different axes and in several configurations.
Due to the obvious weight limitations on space missions the drives needed to be as light and small as possible while still delivering very high power. Precision of motion was a key factor as well since Fedor has critical tasks to perform such as connecting cables, using a screwdriver and a fire extinguisher in a low gravity environment. The power density and extreme precision of the Gold Twitter allowed for those tasks to be performed in the best way in such a challenging environment.
“All of these Elmo features made it possible for us to achieve maximum performance from motors in different axes” – Head of the Application.
Russia hopes Fedor will be able in the future to be fully independent as well as perform space walks and work in high radiation environments.