Sean Dougherty and the Robotic Arm

Sean with the Robotic Arm

July 29

Sean is an engineer for MDA-USA. he works at the Mars Science Laboratory( robotic arm section) in Boulder, Colorado. The company he works for has built arms for the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.


The arm he has been testing on Devon Island is designed for the Mars Rover which will have a human driver. The Rover will be nuclear powered and feature drills, spectrometers and cameras.

There are many of applications for robotic arms on the earth including: repairing water or gas pipes, performing surgery and fun things like creating robotic crane cameras for the movie industry. 

The arm at camp has 4 motors and so can more from 4 different points on the arm --- the of wrist, elbow,shoulder and whole body.

Inside the cab of the Humvee is a computer which controls the arm. There are two screens. One screen shows the views from 4 cameras mounted on the Humvee and arm. ( left and right bumper, front view and view from inside the gripper. The other screen show you diagrams/drawings of the position of the arm. There are two ways to control the arm. The first is with a game controller. That's right a Logitech controller. The second is a strange ball that one moves to move the arm. The advantage of the second devise is that it gives you feedback if you touch objects. For most people the game controller works better but the ball and wires gives a feeling of more control.

Julie and Her Rock

Everyone at camp is going through training to learn to operate the arm.  I managed to "jam" the works twice and had to reset the arm. But I did manage to pick up two rocks, bring them close to the window to visually examine and place them in the sample basket.

The rock

The Arm in Action