The design and dynamic analysis of a lunar lander with semi-active control

Abstract

The Moon is the nearest celestial body to the Earth and the starting point of the space exploration for the human being. The impact energy absorption and landing stability of lunar landers are extremely critical for lunar exploration. However, traditional landers cannot adapt to complex landing conditions and response to any unforeseen accidents during the landing process. Although some researchers have proposed the idea for the lander with MRF dampers, there are relatively few detailed structural designs and practical landing research studies. In this paper, we propose a detailed new type of lander with magnetorheological fluid dampers implemented as the primary struts, which can absorb the impact energy from landing. Its damping force is controlled by semi-active controlled currents based on the derived hydrodynamics of magnetorheological fluid dampers and can adjust to practical landing conditions. The simulation models of landers with the aluminum honeycomb and semi-active control are constructed in MSC Adams separately to compare their landing performances. Their simulation results show that this new type of lander can effectively reduce the largest acceleration by 26.18% under the largest acceleration response condition and the largest compression by 11.77% under the largest compression of primary struts condition. Its performance for more inclined and both smoother and rougher landing surfaces is better than that of traditional passive landers. It is believed that the proposed new type of lander is capable of landing on more complex and unexplored terrains for future lunar explorations.