Our Canfield Joint Gimbal Replacement System will have applications across the full spectrum of NASA gimbal applications. The system can be configured to be passive or active, eliminates many issues and drawbacks with conventional gimbal systems, is more failsafe/reliable than convention gimbal systems and will be less expensive than conventional gimbal systems for high performance applications. Additionally, the CGRS offers simplified, more flexible, robust controls without kinematic singularities and with analytic solutions, which opens up a wide range of industrial applications currently being filled by other types of robotic manipulators (e.g., hexapod/Stewart Platforms). The load carrying capacity and the control system of the CGRS that will likely be the objective of our Phase II proposal will fit many industrial needs and the technology is scalable for much larger and much smaller high-precision and low-precision applications.
Similar to the NASA applications, our Canfield Joint Gimbal Replacement System will have applications across the full spectrum of gimbal applications, especially in commercial and military satellites. Additionally, the controlled Canfield Joint will be designed with a range of motion, load capacity, precision, and accuracy that is compatible with many common and special purpose commercial manufacturing applications, especially those that benefit from very smooth, complex, and accurate positioning of relatively high loads. Finally, telescope systems will benefit from use of the Canfield Joint developed in our proposed program to replace their common use of hexapod positioning systems that have known singularity and control issues.
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