Initial Work Toward A Robotically Assisted Extravehicular Activity Glove

The Space Suit RoboGlove (SSRG) is a glove designed to provide additional grasp strength or endurance for an Extravehicular Activity (EVA) crew member, since a pressurized space suit gloved hand performance is a fraction of what the unencumbered human hand can achieve. There have been past efforts to improve space suit gloved hand performance by employing novel materials and construction techniques to the glove design, as well as integrating powered assistance devices into the gloves. These past efforts were not completely successful and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) decided to develop a new glove based on the NASA/General Motors RoboGlove technology. The resulting SSRG used a unique approach to integrate the robotic actuators and sensors into a Phase VI EVA glove that resulted in a space suit glove that provided grasp augmentation to the user while the augmentation is activated, and also functioned as a normal glove when the augmentation is disabled. Care was taken to avoid adding excessive bulk to the glove or affecting tactility by choosing low-profile sensors and locating the actuators at a distance from the fingers. Conduits were used to guide robotic tendons from linear actuators, across the wrist, and to the fingers. The electromechanical design, softgoods integration, control system, and early test results of the first generation SSRG are presented in this paper. These early test results showed that this sensor integration did not impact tactile feedback in the glove and that the actuators provided potential for increased grip strength and reduction in grasp fatigue over time.