Small Power Technology for Tetrahedral Rovers

The Small Power Technology (SPOT) being studied at GSFC has the potential to be an efficient and compact radioisotope based electrical power system. Such a system would provide power for innovative tetrahedral robotic arms and walkers to support the lunar exploration initiative within the next decade. Presently, NASA has designated two flight qualified Radioisotope Power Supplies (RPS): the Multi‐Mission RTG (MMRTG) which uses thermocouple technology and the more efficient but more massive Stirling RTG (SRTG) which uses a mechanical heat (Stirling) engine technology. With SPOT, thermal output from a radioisotope source is converted to electrical power using a combination of shape memory material and piezoelectric crystals. The SPOT combined energy conversion technologies are potentially more efficient than thermocouples and do not require moving parts, thus keeping efficiency high with an excellent mass to power ratio. Applications of particular interest are highly modular, addressable, reconfigurable arrays of tetrahedral structural components designed to be arms or rovers with high mobility in rough terrain. Such prototypes are currently being built at GSFC. Missions requiring long‐lived operation in unilluminated environments preclude the use of solar cells as the main power source and must rely on the use of RPS technology. The design concept calls for a small motor and battery assembly for each strut, and thus a distributed power system. We estimate, based on performance of our current tetrahedral prototypes and power scaling for small motors, that such devices require tens of watts of power output per kilogram of power supply. For these reasons, SPOT is a good candidate for the ART (addressable Reconfigurable Technology) baseline power system.