Year: 2022
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: A key factor in the economic efficiency of satellites is their availability in orbit. Replacing standardized building blocks, such as empty fuel tanks or outdated electronic modules, could greatly extend the satellites’ lifetime. This, however, requires flexible robots that can locomote on the surface of these satellites for optimal accessibility and manipulation. This paper introduces ReCoBot, a 7-axis walking space manipulator for locomotion and manipulation. The robot can connect to compatible structures with its symmetric ends and provides interfaces for manual teleoperation and motion planning with a constantly changing base and tip. We build on open-source robotics software and easily available components to evaluate the overall concept with an early stage demonstrator. The proposed manipulator has a length of 1.20 m and a weight of 10.4 kg and successfully locomotes over a satellite mockup in our lab environment.
Authors: Stefan Scherzinger, Jakob Weinland, Robert Wilbrandt, Pascal Becker, Arne Roennau, Rudiger Dillmann
Institution: FZI Research Center for Information Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Aerospace Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4312965431