Autonomous Capture of a Resident Space Object by a Spacecraft with a Robotic Manipulator: Analysis, Simulation and Experiments

AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, Long Beach, CA. The article of record may be found at:http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/6.2016-5269This paper describes a set of laboratory-based experiments, which demonstrate the autonomous capture of a non-moving resident space object by a spacecraft equipped with a single robotic manipulator. An air bearing test bed is used to simulate weightlessness and frictionless maneuvering on a plane. The chaser is composed by a floating spacecraft simulator carrying a kinematically redundant four-link serial manipulator. The manipulator mass is similar to the mass of its base-spacecraft, resulting in an unusually large dynamic coupling. Emphasis is given to the guidance and control, demonstrating floating, flying and rotation-flying coordinated control strategies. A resolved-motion-rate controller regulates the manipulator joint velocities. The relative navigation problem, solved by the test bed metrology system, has been left outside the scope of this effort. The presented experiments increase the number of space robotics experimental evaluations conducted in dynamically representative environments

Cyber-Human Systems, Space Technologies, and Threats

CYBER-HUMAN SYSTEMS, SPACE TECHNOLOGIES, AND THREATS is our eighth textbook in a series covering the world of UASs / CUAS/ UUVs / SPACE. Other textbooks in our series are Space Systems Emerging Technologies and Operations; Drone Delivery of CBNRECy – DEW Weapons: Emerging Threats of Mini-Weapons of Mass Destruction and Disruption (WMDD); Disruptive Technologies with applications in Airline, Marine, Defense Industries; Unmanned Vehicle Systems & Operations On Air, Sea, Land; Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems Technologies and Operations; Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the Cyber Domain: Protecting USA’s Advanced Air Assets, 2nd edition; and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the Cyber Domain Protecting USA’s Advanced Air Assets, 1st edition. Our previous seven titles have received considerable global recognition in the field. (Nichols & Carter, 2022) (Nichols, et al., 2021) (Nichols R. K., et al., 2020) (Nichols R. , et al., 2020) (Nichols R. , et al., 2019) (Nichols R. K., 2018) (Nichols R. K., et al., 2022)https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1052/thumbnail.jp

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Evolved design, integration, and test of a modular, multi-link, spacecraft-based robotic manipulator

This thesis reports on the evolved design, test, and integration of a robotic manipulator consisting of multiple modular links, which enable the reconfiguration of the manipulator system for differing mission requirements without constructing unique hardware for each experimental campaign. The evolved design replaced custom components with commercial components to improve performance, standardize hardware, and reduce assembly time. Additional links were constructed and assembled into a four-link manipulator capable of moving its end-effector without imparting motion to the base spacecraft. Each joint can be controlled independently and provides unique telemetry data via Wi-Fi. A mathematical model of the system was implemented, and the kinematic and dynamic behaviors calibrated, resulting in confirmation of the validity of the modular link manipulator concept. A software code based on this model, the Spacecraft Robotics Toolkit (SPART), was published as an open-source kinematics/dynamics and control framework for use by the spacecraft robotics community. Future research will investigate further upgrades, manipulator control and use in operational scenarios.http://archive.org/details/evolveddesignint1094549446Captain, United States ArmyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Spacecraft robotics toolkit: an open-source simulator for spacecraft robotic arm dynamic modeling and control

An open-source, six-degree-of freedom kinematic and dynamic software toolkit for a spacecraft with attached robotic arm has been developed and released. The toolkit is capable of simulating a floating or a flying base and can handle external forces, both in operational and in joint space. Based on a Newton-Euler approach which makes use of the Decoupled Natural Orthogonal Complement matrix, the forward and inverse dynamics are solved using an efficient, recursive O (n) algorithm. Recursive O (n) formulations to obtain the generalized inertia and convective inertia matrices have also been implemented. Written as a collection of function for MATLAB/ Simulink, the toolkit is very modular and it can be used for standalone MATLAB scripts or for Simulink models. The resulting Simulink models are suitable for code generation and thus can be readily compiled and executed into embedded hardware or integrated with third party tools. In addition to modeling the kinematics and dynamics, the software includes tools to help the user create control and analysis applications

Laboratory experiments of resident space object capture by a spacecraft-manipulator system

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2017.09.043A set of laboratory experiments are conducted to demonstrate the autonomous capture of a simulated resident space object by a simulated spacecraft equipped with a robotic manipulator. A planar air-bearing test bed provides a quasi-weightless and drag-free dynamic environment on a plane. To control the chaser’s base, floating, flying, and rotation-flying control approaches are implemented and compared. A resolved-motion-rate controller is used to control the manipulator’s joints. Using these control methods a floating object at rest is successfully captured. Furthermore, the capture of a floating and rotating object is demonstrated using a flying base control approach. The originality of these experiments comes from the remarkably high dynamic coupling of the spacecraft-manipulator system used. Emphasis is given to the guidance and control problems, with the relative navigation problem being left outside the scope of this effort