Robot dynamics and control will become an important issue for productive platforms in space. Robotic operations will be necessary for both man tended stations and for the efficient performance of routine operations in a manned platform. The current constraints on the use of robotic devices in a microgravity environment appears to be due to safety concerns and an anticipated increase in acceleration levels due to manipulator motion. The robot used for the initial studies was a UMI RTX robot, which was adapted to operate in a materials processing workcell to simulate sample changing in a microgravity environment. The robotic cell was flown several times on the KC-135 aircraft at Ellington Field. The primary objective of the initial flights was to determine operating characteristics of both the robot and the operator in the variable gravity of the KC-135 during parabolic maneuvers. It was demonstrated that the KC-135 aircraft can be used for observing dynamics of robotic manipulators. The difficulties associated with humans performing teleoperation tasks during varying G levels were also observed and can provide insight into some areas in which the use of artificial techniques would provide improved system performance. Additionally a graphic simulation of the workcell was developed on a Silicon Graphics Workstation using the IGRIP simulation language from Deneb Robotics. The simulation is intended to be used for predictive displays of the robot operating on the aircraft. It is also anticipated that this simulation can be useful for off-line programming of tasks in the future.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Robot Dynamics in Reduced Gravity Environment


    Contributors:
    G. L. Workman (author) / T. Grisham (author) / E. Hinman (author) / C. Coker (author)

    Publication date :

    1990


    Size :

    6 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




    Reduced gravity multibody dynamics testing

    Sillanpaa, Meija | NTRS | 1993


    Excavation Forces in Reduced Gravity Environment

    Boles, Walter W. | Online Contents | 1997


    Excavation Forces in Reduced Gravity Environment

    Boles, W. W. / Scott, W. D. / Conholly, J. E. | British Library Online Contents | 1997


    Generating a Reduced Gravity Environment on Earth

    Dungan, L. K. / Valle, P. / Shy, C. | NTRS | 2015


    Generating a Reduced Gravity Environment on Earth

    Dungan, Larry K. / Cunningham, Tom / Poncia, Dina | NTRS | 2010