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Space Habitat Reconfigurability: TESSERAE platform for self-aware assembly
Abstract and Figures
As we prepare to venture into deep space, from NASA's priorities for a lunar-orbiting gateway station to private industry prospective Mars missions, we face an inflection point for self-aware, autonomous control of space structures. Can we free space architecture from static, single-use module design and instead enable dynamic, modular space structures that "grow" and evolve over the course of a mission? This paper presents the TESSERAE platform (Tessellated Electromagnetic Space Structures for the Exploration of Reconfigurable Adaptive Environments): a set of self-assembling, multi-functional structural tiles with natively embedded sensing and quasi-stochastic guidance, navigation and control. The TESSERAE research area aims to enable a new class of rapidly reconfigurable, adaptive space architecture with a novel "growth-focused" design theory for space architecture.
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December 2020
... For example, they have been the essential components for satellites, exoplanet rovers and space telescopes [4,5]. They will continue to play a vital role in the future for in-orbit fabrication [6,7] and space habit construction [8][9][10]. Here on Earth, deployable structures are ideal for making military and civilian shelters [11,12] and are even used to develop novel soft robots [13][14][15][16]. ...
Yoshimura origami is a classical folding pattern that has inspired many deployable structure designs. Its applications span from space exploration, kinetic architectures and soft robots to even everyday household items. However, despite its wide usage, Yoshimura has been fixated on a set of design constraints to ensure its flat foldability. Through extensive kinematic analysis and prototype tests, this study presents a new Yoshimura that intentionally defies these constraints. Remarkably, one can impart a unique meta-stability by using the Golden Ratio angle (cot−11.618≈31.72∘) to define the triangular facets of a generalized Yoshimura (with n=3, where n is the number of rhombi shapes along its cylindrical circumference). As a result, when its facets are strategically popped out, a ‘Golden Ratio Yoshimura’ boom with m modules can be theoretically reconfigured into 8m geometrically unique and load-bearing shapes. This result not only challenges the existing design norms but also opens up a new avenue to create deployable and versatile structural systems.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Origami/Kirigami-inspired structures: from fundamentals to applications’.
... The TESSERAE (Tessellated Electromagnetic Space Structures for the Exploration of Reconfigurable Adaptive Environments) project utilizes multiple research methods in our broader practice. 2 They include: ...
MIT Space Exploration Initiative/Aurelia Institute
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts
Established: 2016
Initiative Leadership: Ariel Ekblaw (Founding Director)
Initiative Structure:
Academic Faculty: 3
Research Staff: 10
Postdoctoral Researchers: 1
Graduate Students: 15
Visiting Faculty and Students: 50+
Yoshimura origami is a classical folding pattern that has inspired many deployable structure designs. Its applications span from space exploration, kinetic architectures, and soft robots to even everyday household items. However, despite its wide usage, Yoshimura has been fixated on a set of design constraints to ensure its flat-foldability. Through extensive kinematic analysis and prototype tests, this study presents a new Yoshimura that intentionally defies these constraints. Remarkably, one can impart a unique meta-stability by using the Golden Ratio angle to define the triangular facets of a generalized Yoshimura. As a result, when its facets are strategically popped out, a ``Golden Ratio Yoshimura'' boom with m modules can be theoretically reconfigured into geometrically unique and load-bearing shapes. This result not only challenges the existing design norms but also opens up a new avenue to create deployable and versatile structural systems.
Humanity's burgeoning crewed and uncrewed presence in space is creating increasing opportunity for ideas and approaches gestated for terrestrial use to be adapted and deployed in space applications. To illustrate this from the perspective of the Pervasive Community, this article overviews a selection of recent and ongoing space-oriented projects in the MIT Media Lab's Responsive Environments Group, and chronicles the roots that most of them had in our prior Pervasive Computing research program. These projects involve wearables, smart fabrics, sensor networks, cross-reality systems, pervasive/reactive displays, microrobots, responsive space habitat interiors, and self-assembling systems for in-space infrastructure. Many of them have been tested in zero-gravity and suborbital flights, on the International Space Station, or will be deployed during an upcoming lunar mission. Assessed together, this portfolio of work points forward to the broad role that some of the tenets of Pervasive Computing (e.g., novel sensing technologies, “smart materials”, and best-in-class modern HCI infrastructure) will play in our near-term space future. This work marks an important inflection point in the space industry, where academic research experiments are rapidly maturing—on the scale of months, not years—to influence the products, tools, and human experiences in low earth orbit and beyond.
Additive manufacturing has been hailed as the next fabrication revolution with visions of customization, decentralization, and rapid production. Yet with over three decades of progress, limitations associated with poor material properties, slow fabrication speeds, expensive cost, and volumetric size constraints continue to disappoint. How can we move beyond the current dimensional limits of additive manufacturing and escape the printer's 'box'? What are the routes to 3D print a house, a microfluidic system, or a biological scaffold? Can we produce an Additive Manufacturing Map? This thesis focuses on expanding the limits of additive manufacturing through novel experimental developments across material, spatial, and temporal dimensions. A dimensional additive manufacturing mapping methodology for plotting theoretical and experimental results is generated and discussed. Research into the material dimension resulted in new additive fabrication techniques for construction. Processes include printed insulated formwork, robotically welded metal chain, and techniques using locally sourced materials (sand, natural fibers, soil, and ice). Research into the spatial dimension includes the design, fabrication, and characterization of a mobile Digital Construction Platform capable of 3D printing architectural-scale structures. The platform has a diametrical reach of over 20 m through a compound arm system and can autonomously drive, gather local materials, self-charge via photovoltaics, and fabricate structures larger than itself. A 14.6 m by 3.7 m proof-of-concept structure was successfully 3D printed onsite with a machine manufacturing time under 13.5 hours. Research into microscopic scale fabrication produced a fractal glass electro-sintering technique and initial investigations into a combination one- and two-photon polymerization 3D printer. Research into the temporal dimension focused on fabrication techniques using biomaterials and living systems, such as thermal deposition of squid sucker ring teeth protein, and 3D printable microfluidics. Developments include printable structures to host cellular life, and the design and characterization of a multi-material microfluidic proportional valve. The projects were evaluated with a dimensional methodology workflow, generating an additive manufacturing map. With this mapping methodology, quantified queries, evaluations, and designs - for various additive fabrication tasks dependent on a value proposition - can be responded to, analyzed, and built.
2017 IEEE. Extraterrestrial fabrication of spacecraft by current best-practice manufacturing methods is complicated by the need to integrate thousands of unique parts, each made using a diversity of processes and raw materials. Reducing this complexity could enable exponential space exploration via self-replicating spacecraft (known as Von Neumann probes). We propose a hierarchical model for machine design, based on 13 reversibly-assembled part types, reducing the complexity of machine self-replication and bridging prior work in the areas of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) and modular robotics. Analogous to amino acids in biological systems, these parts form a basis set for the electronic and mechanical subsystems of an exploratory spacecraft. In simulation we validate representative subsystem designs and develop a hierarchical architecture for the design of mechanisms, actuation, and electronics. By standardizing and modularizing the parts, we drastically reduce the diversity of the required supply chain as well as the minimum viable payload mass. We estimate that a seed launch could contain approximately 105 parts, fit within the envelope of a 3U cubesat, and enable the assembly of over one hundred self-replicating assemblers.
Uniting the conceptual foundations of the physical sciences and biology, this groundbreaking multidisciplinary book explores the origin of life as a planetary process. Combining geology, geochemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, evolution and statistical physics to create an inclusive picture of the living state, the authors develop the argument that the emergence of life was a necessary cascade of non-equilibrium phase transitions that opened new channels for chemical energy flow on Earth. This full colour and logically structured book introduces the main areas of significance and provides a well-ordered and accessible introduction to multiple literatures outside the confines of disciplinary specializations, as well as including an extensive bibliography to provide context and further reading. For researchers, professionals entering the field or specialists looking for a coherent overview, this text brings together diverse perspectives to form a unified picture of the origin of life and the ongoing organization of the biosphere. The only book that combines high-level perspectives from geochemistry, biochemistry, microbiology and physics to form an inclusive picture of the origin of life. Offers a view of the nature of the living state that is radically different from the traditional scientific view of life as a property of organisms. Includes the only conceptually modern treatment of thermodynamic ideas directed towards the origin of life and provides a free standing introduction to these ideas.
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the structural properties of a two-dimensional ensemble of magnetic rods, which are modeled as aligned single dipolar beads. The obtained self-assembled configurations can be characterized as (1) clusters, (2) percolated, and (3) ordered structures, and their structural properties are investigated in detail. By increasing the aspect ratio of the magnetic rods, we show that the percolation transition is suppressed due to the reduced mobility of the rods in two dimensions. Such a behavior is opposite to the one observed in three dimensions. A magnetic bulk phase is found with local ferromagnetic order and an unusual nonmonotonic behavior of the nematic order is observed.
The high cost per unit mass of launch and the fixed envelope of a launch vehicle fairing respectively incentivize the reduction of spacecraft mass and stowed volume, while the performance boosts that come from an increase in spacecraft dimensions incentivize the maximization of spacecraft deployed size. Also, specific missions might benefit from a particular capability that represents a prohibitive addition of mass to the system or which may be performed inefficiently with current technology, and some missions cannot be accomplished without a capability that existing technologies cannot provide. New technologies, especially those that can contribute multiple capabilities that span the purviews of multiple subsystems, have the potential to enhance or even enable certain mission concepts. This thesis introduces the concept of an electromagnetic subsystem which can provide both structural and ancillary capabilities to a large spacecraft, due to the tendency of two powered coils to exert forces and torques on one another, as well as several missions that would benefit from such a subsystem and in the process help to mature the technology. As with any new technology, risks and challenges are identified as well as other enabling technologies which must be developed in parallel to make an electromagnetic subsystem possible. One major risk comes from the fact that the only stable configuration of two magnets is collocated and attracting at the origin. In repulsion, magnets are fundamentally unstable because they either diverge or rotate such that they attract and converge to the origin. Elastic hardware is added to the system to provide restorative forces and torques, but instability of the system remains a concern. In this work, a validated methodology is developed for identifying pseudo-passive equilibria and classifying them as statically and dynamically stable or unstable and is applied to a series of electromagnetic structures of increasing realism and degrees of freedom to show that stable configurations can exist with appropriate boundary conditions. The methodology is later applied to a variety of systems, including a larger structure with more coils and connective hardware with different properties, to observe how stability conditions change with changes in assumptions or system size.
Metabolism, the Japanese architectural avant-garde movement of the 1960s, profoundly influenced contemporary architecture and urbanism. This book focuses on the Metabolists' utopian concept of the city and investigates the design and political implications of their visionary planning in the postwar society. At the root of the group's urban utopias was a particular biotechical notion of the city as an organic process. It stood in opposition to the Modernist view of city design and led to such radical design concepts as marine civilization and artificial terrains, which embodied the metabolists' ideals of social change. Tracing the evolution of Metabolism from its inception at the 1960 World Design Conference to its spectacular swansong at the Osaka World Exposition in 1970, this book situates Metabolism in the context of Japan's mass urban reconstruction, economic miracle, and socio-political reorientation. This new study will interest architectural and urban historians, architects and all those interested in avant-garde design and Japanese architecture.
Self-assembly is the autonomous organization of components into patterns or structures without human intervention. Self-assembling processes are common throughout nature and technology. They involve components from the molecular (crystals) to the planetary (weather systems) scale and many different kinds of interactions. The concept of self-assembly is used increasingly in many disciplines, with a different flavor and emphasis in each.