Computer Science – Robotics
Scientific paper
Apr 1999
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999xmm..pres....5.&link_type=abstract
XMM Press Release PR 5-1999
Computer Science
Robotics
Scientific paper
ETS-VII is the latest in NASDA's series of engineering test satellites. It is dedicated to the in-orbit assessment and demonstration of novel technologies in rendez-vous / docking and space robotics. ETS-VII is in fact a pair of satellites, a larger chaser and a smaller target satellite which can be released for the rendez-vous and docking experiments. The larger satellite carries a robot arm with a stretched length of about 2 m, and a set of experimentation equipment to test the robot's capabilities : a task board on which typical robot manipulation activities can be performed and measured, an Orbital Replacement Unit (ORU) to be removed and reinstalled, a truss structure to be erected, an antenna assembly mechanism to be actuated and an advanced robot hand.
The ESA experiments concern advanced schemes for planning, commanding, controlling and monitoring the activities of a space robot arm system. One set of experiments tests an operational mode called "interactive autonomy", whereby the robot motions are split into typical "tasks" of medium complexity. Ground operators can interact with the tasks (parameterising, commanding, rescheduling, monitoring, interrupting them as needed), relying on the fact that each task will be autonomously executed using appropriate sensor-based control loops (it having been programmed and extensively verified in advance by simulation). This significantly reduces the amount of data traffic over the spacelink - in fact, ETS-VII offers only a few short communications windows per day. Data from ESA experiments will be used to assess the performance of tasks executed with "interactive autonomy" compared with the more traditional telemanipulation at lower control levels.
The second group of experiments concerns vision-based robot control. Using the Japanese-provided on-board vision system (which includes one hand camera and one scene-overview camera), it has been demonstrated that reliable automatic object localisation and grasping can be performed even without the artificial markers which are typically used to guide telemanipulation. This is an important capability for robotically servicing "non-cooperative" targets.
The success of these experiments is an important step towards the development of a number of ESA space robot systems which will be launched and installed on the International Space Station in the next few years. Looking beyond the ISS, the functional demonstration of satellite capture by robotic means could also inspire novel applications for space robotics on free-flying servicing vehicles.
Development work for the ESA experiments was funded by Belgium under the ESA Technology Demonstration Programme (TDP) and the ESA General Support Technology Programme (GSTP).
After competitive tendering, the contract was awarded to a team led by TRASYS Space and including as sub-contractors SAS and two institutes at the Catholic University (KUL) in Louvain, Belgium.
ETS-VII was launched in November 1997. It operates in a circular orbit at an altitude of 550 km and is controlled from the Tsukuba Space Centre via NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite. In the course of 1998, NASDA successfully performed a range of experiments in space robotics and rendez-vous and docking.
In an effort to strengthen international cooperation NASDA offered ESA an opportunity to participate in the ETS-VII experiments. ESA responded positively with several proposals and in 1997 an ESA/NASDA Memorandum of Understanding was concluded concerning the joint robot experiment.
Information on this and the other experiments on ETS-VII can be viewed on http://oss1.tksc.nasda.go.jp/ets-7index_e.html
More information on ESA at http://www.esa.int
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