The concept for a robot-based Equipment Manipulation and Transportation System (EMATS) for the Columbus Free Flying Laboratory is described. EMATS could not only automatically provide the greater part of the payload facility handling and logistics functions during the unmanned microgravity periods, but also perform unmanned servicing operations in conjunction with various logistics vehicles concepts and assist the crew during manned servicing from the Space Station Freedom and from Hermes. To that end, a variety of telerobotics features are foreseen such as teleoperation and supervised automatic operation from ground or from a small control station aboard the Free Flyer, Hermes, or the Space Station Freedom. The overall EMATS architecture is summarized and the flexibility of the concept is illustrated by results from computer graphics simulations.
Robot-Based Equipment Manipulation and Transportation for the Columbus Free Flying Laboratory
1989
6 pages
Report
No indication
English