Research and Development of Free-Flying Space Telerobot. Ground Experimental Model.

This paper presents an on-going program for research and development of a free-flying space telerobot. The proposed telerobot will perform extra-vehicular activity taking over human astronauts. A manufactured ground experimental model has inertial sensors and thrusters for maneuver, and two manipulators and one capturing mechanism for manipulation. We experimented with this model on 2 dimensional flat test bed that simulates zero-gravity and non-constraint condition on earth ground. The experimental results showed that the telerobot had good performance in an assumed task for retrieving a drifting satellite.