On Telerobotic in Spaceflight: Activities at the Space Operations Division

Abstract

Since about one decade DLR is strongly involved in preparing and developing advanced technologies for space telerobotic systems and their successful in-orbit operations. The overall work comprises topics like - system studies for future space scenarios involving telerobotics. - development of advanced telerobotic components (multi-sensorial grippers, actulators, light-weight robots, concepts of teleoperations regarding long delay times, new man-machine interfaces, comupter graphics techniques, etc.), - set up and operation of hardware-in-the-loop ground simulators for test and qualification purposes, including real-time simulation of the dynamic behaviour of space manipulators. These activities are covered by the Robotics Institute and the Space Operations Division of DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen, with a first great success in the ROTEX experiment within the German Spacelab D2-Mission in 1993. This lecture addresses special attention to the ITA-DLR cooparation in the field of dynamics and control of elastic space manipulators where adaptive controller designs have been successfully demonstrated by means of the DLR Servicing Test Facility.