System design and locomotion of SUPERball, an untethered tensegrity robot

TLDR

SUPERball is a NASA Ames and DTRL tensegrity robot platform, with the current prototype being the first full version aimed at space exploration. This work presents the fully‑constructed SUPERball robot, building on prior component discussions. The authors describe design improvements, sensor and actuator testing, low‑level motor position control validation, and a basic untethered locomotion primitive for SUPERball. Testing shows that the design improvements, sensor and actuator performance, and low‑level motor controls enable accurate trajectory tracking and untethered locomotion.

Abstract

The Spherical Underactuated Planetary Exploration Robot ball (SUPERball) is an ongoing project within NASA Ames Research Center's Intelligent Robotics Group and the Dynamic Tensegrity Robotics Lab (DTRL). The current SUPERball is the first full prototype of this tensegrity robot platform, eventually destined for space exploration missions. This work, building on prior published discussions of individual components, presents the fully-constructed robot. Various design improvements are discussed, as well as testing results of the sensors and actuators that illustrate system performance. Basic low-level motor position controls are implemented and validated against sensor data, which show SUPERball to be uniquely suited for highly dynamic state trajectory tracking. Finally, SUPERball is shown in a simple example of locomotion. This implementation of a basic motion primitive shows SUPERball in untethered control.