Advancing automation and robotics technology for the Space Station Freedom and for the U.S. economy

In April 1985, as required by Public Law 98-371, the NASA Advanced Technology Advisory Committee (ATAC) reported to Congress the results of its studies on advanced automation and robotics technology for use on Space Station Freedom. This material was documented in the initial report (NASA Technical Memorandum 87566). A further requirement of the law was that ATAC follow NASA's progress in this area and report to Congress semiannually. This report is the fifteenth in a series of progress updates and covers the period between 27 Feb. - 17 Sep. 1992. The progress made by Levels 1, 2, and 3 of the Space Station Freedom in developing and applying advanced automation and robotics technology is described. Emphasis was placed upon the Space Station Freedom program responses to specific recommendations made in ATAC Progress Report 14. Assessments are presented for these and other areas as they apply to the advancement of automation and robotics technology for Space Station Freedom

Fault-tolerant scheme for robotic manipulator -Nonlinear robust back-stepping control with friction compensation

Emerging applications of autonomous robots requiring stability and reliability cannot afford component failure to achieve operational objectives. Hence, identification and countermeasure of a fault is of utmost importance in mechatronics community. This research proposes a Fault-tolerant control (FTC) for a robot manipulator, which is based on a hybrid control scheme that uses an observer as well as a hardware redundancy strategy to improve the performance and efficiency in the presence of actuator and sensor faults. Considering a five Degree of Freedom (DoF) robotic manipulator, a dynamic LuGre friction model is derived which forms the basis for design of control law. For actuator's and sensor's FTC, an adaptive back-stepping methodology is used for fault estimation and the nominal control law is used for the controller reconfiguration and observer is designed. Fault detection is accomplished by comparing the actual and observed states, pursued by fault tolerant method using redundant sensors. The results affirm the effectiveness of the proposed FTC strategy with model-based friction compensation. Improved tracking performance as well robustness in the presence of friction and fault demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed control approach

SDIO robotics in space applications

Robotics in space supporting the Strategic Defense System (SDS) program is discussed. Ongoing initiatives which are intended to establish an initial Robotics in Space capability are addressed. This is specifically being referred to as the Satellite Servicing System (SSS). This system is based on the NASA Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) with a Robotic Manipulator(s) based on the NASA Flight Telerobotic Servicer (FTS) and other SSS equipment required to do the satellite servicing work attached to the OMV. Specific Robotics in Space Requirements which have resulted from the completion of the Robotics Requirements Study Contract are addressed

Neural Network-Based Model for Classification of Faults During Operation of a Robotic Manipulator

The importance of error detection is high, especially in modern manufacturing processes where assembly lines operate without direct supervision. Stopping the faulty operation in time can prevent damage to the assembly line. Public dataset is used, containing 15 classes, 2 types of faultless operation and 13 types of faults, with 463 force and torsion datapoints. Four different methods are used: Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) selected due to high classification performance, Support Vector Machines (SVM) commonly used for a low number of datapoints, Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) known for high performance in classification with matrix inputs and Siamese Neural Network (SNN) novel method with high performance in small datasets. Two classification tasks are performed-error detection and classification. Grid search is used for hyperparameter variation and F1 score as a metric, with a 10 fold cross-validation. Authors propose a hybrid system consisting of SNN for detection and CNN for fault classification

A fault-tolerant intelligent robotic control system

This paper describes the concept, design, and features of a fault-tolerant intelligent robotic control system being developed for space and commercial applications that require high dependability. The comprehensive strategy integrates system level hardware/software fault tolerance with task level handling of uncertainties and unexpected events for robotic control. The underlying architecture for system level fault tolerance is the distributed recovery block which protects against application software, system software, hardware, and network failures. Task level fault tolerance provisions are implemented in a knowledge-based system which utilizes advanced automation techniques such as rule-based and model-based reasoning to monitor, diagnose, and recover from unexpected events. The two level design provides tolerance of two or more faults occurring serially at any level of command, control, sensing, or actuation. The potential benefits of such a fault tolerant robotic control system include: (1) a minimized potential for damage to humans, the work site, and the robot itself; (2) continuous operation with a minimum of uncommanded motion in the presence of failures; and (3) more reliable autonomous operation providing increased efficiency in the execution of robotic tasks and decreased demand on human operators for controlling and monitoring the robotic servicing routines

A survey on uninhabited underwater vehicles (UUV)

ASME Early Career Technical Conference, ASME ECTC, October 2-3, 2009, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USAThis work presents the initiation of our underwater robotics research which will be focused on underwater vehicle-manipulator systems. Our aim is to build an underwater vehicle with a robotic manipulator which has a robust system and also can compensate itself under the influence of the hydrodynamic effects. In this paper, overview of the existing underwater vehicle systems, thruster designs, their dynamic models and control architectures are given. The purpose and results of the existing methods in underwater robotics are investigated

Sensor Fault Detection and Compensation with Performance Prescription for Robotic Manipulators

This paper focuses on sensor fault detection and compensation for robotic manipulators. The proposed method features a new adaptive observer and a new terminal sliding mode control law established on a second-order integral sliding surface. The method enables sensor fault detection without the need to impose known bounds on fault value and/or its derivative. It also enables fast and fixed-time fault-tolerant control whose performance can be prescribed beforehand by defining funnel bounds on the tracking error. The ultimate boundedness of the estimation errors for the proposed observer and the fixed-time stability of the control system are shown using Lyapunov stability analysis. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified using numerical simulations on two different robotic manipulators, and the results are compared with existing methods. Our results demonstrate performance gains obtained by the proposed method compared to the existing results

Paper Session I-A - Hands-off Farming in Space

This paper focuses on the mechanization of a biomass production system (BPS) in enclosed environments for space agriculture. It requires an intelligent computer for the autonomous adjustment of controlled elements and a robotic system for measurement of plant growth and harvest. This research is to develop and integrate a BPS framework that enables autonomy, monitoring, diagnosis, fault detection and correction, and production optimization. The key feature is an integrated health monitoring and production management and control system (IHPMCS) implemented with the robotic system. IHPMCS is an integrated algorithm integrated into an embedded computer that can process biomass production data in real-time based on measurements of production elements in the chamber. The concept proposed is to take the human expert out of the control loop and build his expertise into the computer to yield an autonomous BPS. This will provide an optimal and autonomous biomass production capability so that BPS can maximize the ability to grow plants and allow astronauts to be more involved in scientific or technical activities. This is a collaborative research between academia (University of Central Florida), industry (Dynamac), and government agency (NASA) at Kennedy Space Center

On the effort of task completion for partially-failed manipulators

Adding to a previous work of the authors for task completion for partially failed manipulator, other aspects of the effort are discussed. The paper aims to investigate on the strategies of maximum effort for maintaining the availability of partially failed manipulators. The failures are assumed as the joint lock failures of the manipulators. The main objective is to facilitate the existing manipulators to continue their tasks even if a non catastrophic fault occurs into their joints. The tasks includes motion tasks and force tasks. For each group of tasks a constrained optimality problem is introduced. Then in a case study a required force profile on a desired trajectory using a 3DOF planar manipulator is indicated. Through this study the joint angles and joint torques for a healthy manipulator and a faulty manipulator are shown. It is illustrated that a failure in the second joint is tolerated on the trajectory of end-effector