Mars Surveyor '98 Lander MVACS robotic arm control system design concepts

This paper describes the control system design concepts for the Mars Volatiles and Climate Surveyor (MVACS) Robotic Arm which supports the scientific investigations to be conducted as part of the Mars Surveyor '98 Lander project. Novel solutions are presented to some of the unique problems encountered in this demanding space application with its tight constraints on mass, power, volume, and computing resources. Problems addressed include the 4-DOF forward and inverse kinematics, trajectory planning to minimize potential impact damage, joint drive train protection, Lander tilt prevention, hardware fault monitoring, and collision avoidance.